NHS Supply Chain’s statement on the Public Accounts Committee Report

We are committed to realising the full potential of NHS Supply Chain to deliver greater savings and efficiencies alongside a broader value proposition focussing on supply chain resilience, product safety, enabling access to innovation, social value, sustainability, and ethical considerations.

We have redesigned NHS Supply Chain’s operating model and embarked on a major modernisation programme to upgrade key infrastructure and IT systems. We need to further improve and integrate our platforms to provide a more consistent experience for colleagues across the NHS and suppliers. As the NAO report highlighted our funding is managed on a year-by-year business cycle in line with NHS England’s business planning process.

We are continuing to work together with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England, NHS trusts, suppliers, and other system partners across the country to improve procurement in the NHS. This will be achieved through ongoing collaboration, partnership working and innovation.

Over the last year we have been strengthening our engagement with our NHS partners to improve our understanding of their needs through our quarterly national and regional advisory forums, various panels and working groups. We are continuing to develop these engagement forums to ensure that they bring the voice of NHS colleagues and patients into the heart of our organisation. These engagement forums support our goals to make substantial improvements in satisfaction with our services by ensuring our business plans focus on those matters that will make the greatest difference to the NHS.

NHS Supply Chain is clear that we can deliver over £1 billion of value by 2030.  This can only be achieved by working in collaboration with all groups within the NHS, national bodies, industry associations, suppliers and NHS England. We have worked with NHS England and national representatives of the NHS trusts to develop a new standard saving methodology for the entire NHS and it’s expected that this method will be ready for all parties to use to calculate savings from April 2024. Our programme is aligned to this approach and reporting method.

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Notes to editors

All information in this media statement is correct at the time of going to press.

Background

• The redesign of NHS Supply Chain’s operating model went live on 1 August 2023 and supports our vision to make it easier to put patients first and our strategy to buy smart, supply right and partner expertly.
• Different savings methodologies for different audiences were put in place for historic reasons following the setup of the previous NHS Supply Chain model in 2018 through the Department of Health and Social Care’s Procurement Transformation Programme.
• The new NHS Single Savings methodology, which is being adopted across the whole NHS, is written so that value and savings that are generated through procurement activity are recognised in a consistent manner across the NHS and associated organisations. NHS Supply Chain will adopt this methodology.
• We recognise that eDirect is crucial to our customers across all sectors, and so a taskforce has been operationalized to enhance the service to improve and ultimately transform the end-to-end process. Although material improvements have been made since March 2023, further systemic improvements will require investments in technology.  This is included in business planning for 2024/25 but is subject to funding and resource considerations.

About NHS Supply Chain

NHS Supply Chain is part of the NHS family and manage the sourcing, delivery and supply of healthcare products, services and food for NHS trusts and healthcare organisations across England and Wales.

We manage more than 8 million orders per year across more than 129,000 order points and over 16,000 locations. We deliver over 35 million lines of picked goods to the NHS annually and our systems consolidate orders from over 1100 suppliers. This enables us to bring value to our NHS partners, helping them save time and money in removing duplication of overlapping contracts.

NHS Supply Chain aims to leverage the collective buying power of the NHS to drive savings and provide a standardised range of clinically assured, quality products at the best value.

NHS Supply Chain is committed to enabling the NHS to deliver safe and excellent patient care.

Supply Chain Coordination Ltd (SCCL) is the company at the heart of NHS Supply Chain. It provides oversight and operational management for NHS Supply Chain and its service providers. 

SCCL is the legal entity through which NHS Supply Chain undertakes its procurement services and transacts with customers and suppliers.

Whilst its shares are owned by NHS England, SCCL is a separate organisation.