New NHS Supply Chain Digital Commerce Platform Will Provide a More Efficient Solution for Ordering Products and Support Better Patient Outcomes
As part of our vision to be easier to work with, we have established a Digital Commerce programme to deploy a ‘best in class’ Digital Commerce Platform to NHS trusts across England over the next two years.
The new platform will provide NHS trusts with a consistent, user friendly, and efficient solution for ordering products. It will drive major benefits for NHS trusts such as improving the experience of using our service and making it easier to work with us as well as delivering savings.
To deliver the new Digital Commerce Platform we are working with Deloitte Digital, which will deploy its award-winning Commerce Hub Solution utilising the commercetools platform front end, with Google Cloud hosting. The Deloitte Digital team has extensive knowledge of eCommerce transformation from experience across the private and public sectors.
Deloitte Digital’s Commerce Hub is a digital platform that is established and proven in the market and used by many organisations, including leading retailers. This is a platform delivered as a service solution whereby the product will integrate with our core systems managed by our core IT Service Provider. All data will be managed and hosted in line with NHS guidelines and all commercial and procurement decisions will sit with NHS Supply Chain.
An integral part of the Digital Commerce programme is the customer panel we have set up. Representatives from seven NHS trusts will be playing a key part in the development of the programme. They’ll be providing ongoing input into the iterative design work and acting as pilot trusts for the initial capability roll outs. The programme is taking a phased approach.
The first iteration of the platform in spring 2024 will be for the seven pilot trusts. Following the deployment of the platform to these pilot trusts, we plan to migrate the remaining NHS trusts in a phased manner from the existing systems to the new platform. Our detailed programme planning continues and timelines are part of that. We will continue to keep NHS trusts updated as plans progress.
Jodi Chapman, Customer Executive Director, NHS Supply Chain
Members of the customer panel currently include representatives from Barts Health NHS Trust, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. We will also be engaging with other trusts and the wider NHS as the Digital Commerce programme progresses.
Modernisation of our customer facing platforms is a critical part of our IT Strategy in order for NHS Supply Chain to deliver the strategic needs of the NHS going forward.
Matt Wynn, Data and Technology Executive Director, NHS Supply Chain
As we continue to modernise other parts of our organisation, such as the warehouse management system, this will enable us to introduce additional capability and information to NHS trusts via this new platform.
Through the new platform we will be able to provide a better user experience for customers, with simpler processes, greater personalisation, and improved communications, making it more efficient to order products to support patient care and improve patient outcomes across all NHS settings.