In the second post in our ‘12 for 12’ series, Greg Staryk-Mills, Business Development Manager at Science Warehouse discusses how the drive for health service savings is keeping the focus on NHS procurement. He addresses how the NHS can use improved spend control, compliance and data for better buying decisions.
Please click here to read ‘An unhealthy position: a look at NHS procurement’ from Supply Management
With cost being top of the agenda within the NHS, the government has already set ambitious targets to start reigning in the NHS budget. Can this be achieved with Spend Analysis? A key initiative for the NHS is a focus on ensuring quality of supply whilst reigning in costs. The question is how do you provide a quality service without impacting patient care?
Procurement Intelligence is the foundation that will help fuel the savings needed to provide a sustainable National Health Service. Today’s NHS agenda needs to focus on 3 key areas to drive Procurement Intelligence:
- The right tools
- The right skills
- Process & Practices
Once this foundation has been laid, focus needs to be on data and procurement 
information, which if incorrect can be likened to no more than an information lottery. Managing data from multiple suppliers in different formats and with differing levels of data quality is a challenge which many organisations struggle with. Not only is it time consuming but often a manual process. Get this stage wrong and users are spending more money than they should or getting the wrong product. Last year’s report from the Department of Health found that some NHS Trusts have paid over 100 different prices for the same product.
With the exception of specialist clinical areas all NHS trusts are buying the same commodities. On paper therefore, the logic of standardised pricing with all trusts getting the same level of discount is unassailable. In practice though, local conditions, clinician preferences and a fragmented structure make such equalities hard to deliver.
These issues are well recognised within the health service and procurement professionals within the NHS have been instrumental in driving information standards with product classification schemas such as eClass and GTIN. However, it is often down to catalogue managers to manage procurement data within their own trusts. The next stage is therefore to make this information accessible to drive comparability and benchmarking.
Once the above issues have been addressed, only then can you start to look at who is spending what with whom. Spend Analysis is a key starting point to allow you to control spending, improve your pricing from suppliers, consolidate suppliers, remove duplicate products and ultimately optimise your supplier relationships.
Please click here to read ‘Targeting NHS savings’
Do you agree Procurement Intelligence can help the NHS save money? Can good quality spend data really drive savings? Feel free to post your comments below
