eDirect in Focus

Our aim is to ensure that we provide confidence in eDirect so that our customers can use it to its optimum, delivering the great outcomes in terms of quality, savings, and service we strive for.

eDirect Customer Portfolio Project Manager

We will achieve this through a range of activities, some of which are already in progress, including:

• Continue customer engagement to ensure that our work is driven by our customers.
• Improving the content of supplier delivery paperwork.
• Optimising NHS Supply Chain processes, to maximise the benefit of new systems.
• Continue to monitor new issues and additional root causes.
• Working with our suppliers to improve service levels and enhance total service offering.
• Working with our customers to ensure catalogue alignment.
• Improving our communication channels.

From the start, we have placed the customer at the centre of our eDirect project. We have been engaging with trusts and suppliers through a series of deep dive workshops. We have delved into the good, the bad, and the indifferent perceptions of eDirect as a service. We asked our partners to identify what is the most important part of the eDirect system to improve. These sessions have been invaluable in terms of identifying and prioritising the key areas of our focus.

To improve eDirect order contacts so that our customers stay up to date on their orders, we introduced new contact system functionality in September 2021.

This new functionality enables customers who use 3rd party order systems to maintain order contact details through the NHS Supply Chain Online website.

When the new functionality was released, we assigned a User contact to ensure a seamless transition. However, after the release, Trust Administrator access will be required to maintain customer contact details. Therefore you may choose to become a Trust Administrator on behalf of your trust’s NHS Supply Chain account.

Important note:

• For our customers who order through our eCommerce platforms (Online Ordering and eDC) we will continue to use the requisitioner details as the order contact to inform eDirect and Blue Diamond order notifications. The contact will be the same as the Requisitioner. This is to avoid any signifcant change to the eCommerce platforms.
• The only exception to the above is favourites, standing orders, or orders that are split due to variances in lead time or supplier. For these, any order amends will be communicated to the Appointed Requisition Point contact.
• For all other customers we will use the Appointed Requisition Point user contact.

If you would like to become a Trust Administrator on behalf of your trust’s NHS Supply Chain account, you will need to apply via our Trust Administrator Account Online Application Form.

Please make sure you have read and understood the information on this page before completing the form.

Once you have submitted your application, we will review your request to be appointed as a Trust Administrator on behalf of your trust. We will use the information to verify your identity and obtain consent for you to be appointed as a Trust Administrator from within your trust. If that verification process is satisfactory, we will confirm your appointment to this role.

If you are already a Trust Administrator you do not need to reapply.

A Trust Administrator manages and assumes ultimate responsibility for setting up, authorising and facilitating end users who order products through us on behalf of their trust.

This includes:

• Selecting the correct individuals (active staff)
• Authorising appropriate level of systemic permissions for access to our Online Catalogue and Ordering System, Online Reports and our application for eDC terminal users.

Specific role responsibilities:

• To act as the main point of contact for communication of IT issues and initiatives received, which should be cascaded to individuals with User Maintenance roles and in turn to end users.
• Are responsible for proactively updating us of any Trust Administrators (including themselves) who are leaving and who need their role/status deleting or amending.
• Are required to maintain their own internal register of system users for their organisation.
• Are responsible for proactively deleting/ amending end user accounts within their institution (excepting users who themselves hold the Trust Administrator role).
• Have ultimate control of masking products within their organisation.
• To act in accordance with the internal legal, compliance and financial policies governing your trust.

NHS Supply Chain, and our ordering applications, operate on a business to customer model. This is where all orders are presumed delivery and positively receipted (100% Goods Received Note / GRN). There is therefore no receipting functionality built into the applications.

The exception to this is our eDC Gold inventory management system. This application has a receipting function used to adjust stock levels and improve stock management for clinical products. See our Useful Links section to learn what our eDC Gold system can do for you.

We understand that our customers have diverse needs in relation to their financial handling of procurement and ordering. We can now provide a hybrid invoicing model of both consolidated and detailed invoicing to our customers. For customers requiring this we will agree and set up specific detailed invoice requisition points at district level. See our Downloads ▼ section to read more about hybrid invoicing in our customer guide.

Specific Oracle-based 3rd party systems were developed to replicate the NHS Supply Chain business to customer model. These systems include Shared Business Services (SBS), North East Patches (NEP), and Patech. These systems positively receipt all orders following transmission due to the .cXML order transmission type. This differs from direct to supplier ordering where PDF orders are not sent electronically via the .cXML format, and therefore remain open for receipting.

Unfortunately, this is not an issue NHS Supply Chain alone can resolve:

• These systems have been procured and are managed by our customers own Finance and IT teams.
• This is how our P2P systems are built to operate.

We can confirm that our systems are operating as designed. We will continue to review the service and identify which technical, process or business transactional model developments we can make in the future.

NHS Supply Chain applications:

1. Implement a robust process for checking received deliveries and report any errors to NHS Supply Chain for rectification. This should be in place as a matter of best practice for NHS Supply Chain orders generated by online ordering or eDC.
2. Use an internal 3rd party P2P system to order via NHS Supply Chain which will provide receipting functionality. Please note, this is unless it is an Oracle-based application such as EROS, Powergate, Cedar eFinancials, etc.

3rd Party Oracle systems:

1. Request a development from your contracted system provider to enable configurable receipting based on the product, category, flag, etc. This is different to the order transmission type which currently dictates logic in Oracle.
2. Enable receipting for all orders and transmission types in your systems. This will result in all orders from NHS Supply Chain requiring receipting and all payments being held until completed.
3. Set up a secondary account (aka district) with NHS Supply Chain specifically for SSDP (Specialised Services Devices programme (formerly known as the High-Cost Tariff-Excluded Devices programme) orders. This allows the primary account to remain positively receipted for the bulk volume orders and the secondary account to be set for receipting NHS Supply Chain orders.

NHS providers utilise their internal 3rd party P2P systems to enable recipeing and a two-way match between order and receipt.

NHS providers using either Oracle based P2P systems or NHS Supply Chain systems, ensure they have a diligent checking in place to confirm receipt before payment on invoicing.

A small number of NHS providers have opted to separate SSDP device order into a second NHS Supply Chain account (district). This enables them to configure orders to receipt and orders, not to receipt at the account (district) level. This deployment has varying levels of success.

The issue mainly occurs when an NHS trust orders through its internal third party purchase to pay (P2P) systems. There are two root cause issues:

1. The inability to enter a free text note at either order or line level on the physical User Interface (UI) when placing an order through a third party P2P system.
2. The inability for any successfully entered free text data to be transferred to and received by NHS Supply Chain within the order message. This occurs because:
   • The third party P2P system is not configured to extract and send the free text data to NHS Supply Chain in the outbound order message.
   • An Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) sends the order electronically in a legacy File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The NHS Supply Chain system cannot accept the additional free text fields.

We have delivered a series of solutions to enable the transmission of eDirect batch and serial numbers at the point of order. The below developments provide the ability to input, receive and transmit data. Also, enabling the systems to record and report the data into NHS Supply Chain invoices, reporting suite and the Supplier Portal.

If affected, we encourage NHS trusts to consider implementing one of the recommended solutions below.

NHS Supply Chain Online Ordering application

We developed our Online Ordering application to enter and transmit batch or serial data across three free text fields:

1. Local reference:
   • Accepts 40 characters but is limited to 17 reportable characters on our TR reports.
2. Order level field:
   • Accepts and transmits 160 characters per order.
   • Transmits the notes field to all suppliers within the order.
3. Line level fields:
   • Accepts and transmits 240 characters per order line.
   • Transmits the line note only to the supplier the order line refers to.

Use the eDC Gold inventory management system

Our eDC Gold inventory management application is available to NHS trusts free of charge and has the functionality to better manage consignment stock. See our Useful Links section for further information on eDC and eDC Gold.

The application captures batch and serial information upon scanning the product barcode. Where there are multiple issues of the same product the orders are collated by the middleware transaction process. This then exceeds the character limits and deletes all the information transmitted to the Supplier Portal. There will be occasions where there are not multiple issues and therefore the character length is not exceeded, and this information will be displayed within the Supplier Portal.

We are looking at how we can resolve the collation issue as part of the eDirect in Focus project.

Third party P2P orders transmitted via PEPPOL

PEPPOL is an acronym for Pan European Public Procurement Online, a .cXML order messaging methodology that operates on a 4-corner model. PEPPOL is an EDI protocol co-funded by the European Commission and 18 government agencies. Its aim is to simplify the P2P process between government bodies and suppliers. Most importantly, it offers a standardised connection for electronic ordering, invoicing, credit notes and advanced shipment notes.

NHS trusts and suppliers integrate and interact with PEPPOL access points. Following this, the PEPPOL access points transmit the messages to each other. NHS Supply Chain is PEPPOL compliant and uses the 4-corner model. The PEPPOL order message methodology can accept free text order fields at order or line level which can contain eDirect batch or serial data.

Some NHS trusts and third party system providers have sought to implement .cXML ordering direct with NHS Supply Chain and not through PEPPOL access points. Please note that this is an interim solution until a trust is PEPPOL compliant. Whilst the order messaging is similar to PEPPOL, not using the 4-corner model means that it is not PEPPOL compliant.

PEPPOL was a key part of the Department of Health and Social Care eProcurement Strategy published 2014, which states in Appendix A that PEPPOL was the messaging format to be adopted by the NHS.

Remove vendor managed consignment stock

If an NHS trust does not use consignment stock, then the supplier dictated requirement for provision of batch or serial data at point of order is removed.

However, this is not a suitable solution for all SSDP (Specialised Services Devices programme (formerly known as the High-Cost Tariff-Excluded Devices programme) categories nor all NHS trusts:

• Vendor managed consignment offers benefits in certain category areas.
• Not all NHS trusts have the funds to purchase the vendor consigned stock.
• Not all NHS trusts have inventory management systems or robust inventory management processes to mitigate the risk of loss, damage and expiry.

Becoming PEPPOL compliant. This is the advisable solution and if you are wanting to become PEPPOL complaint the Cegedim (previously known as NetEDI) team can assist you. They are the NHS Supply Chain’s PEPPOL Access Point and EDI Managed Service Provider:

NHS trusts that have migrated to NHS Supply Chain transactional model and have negotiated and developed their selected third party P2P systems accordingly. We are happy to work with you and help facilitate these cross business discussions. Please contact us for assistance:

You told us…

That eDirect Minimum Order Values (MOVs) can often pose a problem with eDirect orders as you do not receive a notification when the order has not met the threshold. Without receiving a notification part or all your order may be cancelled without you knowing at the point of order.

Some suppliers have a Minimum Order Value in place. NHS Supply Chain agrees to these as they benefit customers with lower total costs by providing efficiencies of scale. For example, with MOV’s in place this reduces delivery costs.

As you have told us, the problem is that customers are not notified at the point of placing an order if they have met the minimum order threshold. To meet the threshold is to have met or exceeded the suppliers’ minimum order value.

Also, the online ordering account or primary contact point may not be the same person who is placing the order.

The primary contact point is communicated to where customers use a third party ordering system and are not using our Online Ordering system in parallel. For example, a Procure to Pay or Source to Pay system.

We are continuously working with our suppliers to reduce the minimum order values. Since the start of the eDirect project, suppliers that require a minimum order threshold have reduced by 30%. Additionally, a number of other suppliers have also reduced their threshold values.

For some suppliers, it is not financially viable for them to process very low value orders without an increase in operational cost. This cost would then be passed on to our customers. As such, it is likely that minimum order values will always have a place when ordering.

See our Downloads ▼ section for a list of all suppliers who currently state a minimum order value. All orders will need to meet or exceed the stated amount.

We work with our suppliers to ensure agreed service levels and operating procedures are adhered to yet some of our suppliers have, over time, adopted numerous work arounds for back-orders to meet your demands and expectations. Unfortunately, there is no standard approach to these work arounds, so there are many ways in which suppliers will service, manage, and invoice a part-shipped order.  We acknowledge that the lack of a consistent approach is proving increasingly difficult for you to manage and to improve this we will introduce a manually managed back order line amendment service for our customers during financial year 2024-2025.

• We want to make it easy to engage and work with us, so we are updating our ways of working to accommodate a back order management process.
• We want you to be able to manage your materials and inventory effectively, so we’ll provide you with clear and timely information on the status of your order.
• We want to support your ability to manage patient care and organisational demands, so we’ll provide you with reliable information when there is a delay, along with realistic estimates of when the order can be expected.
• We want to reduce your current administrative overheads and provide you with the opportunity to make choices around your orders. So, we’ll process back orders on your behalf against the same NHS Provider purchase order / Local reference number.
• We want to help suppliers keep their prices low and better plan for future demand, so we’ll simplify and standardise the back order management process for our suppliers
• We want to reduce the burden of accruals and concerns around Specialised Services Devices Programme SSDP (formally known as HCTED) reimbursement, so we’ll enable suppliers to invoice shipped goods against a completed purchase order, raising a new order for the balance.

• The solution will cover our eDirect order route only. 
• Orders will be transferred to our end suppliers using our current referencing standards
• If an order line cannot be fulfilled due to stock shortage, the supplier can:
  • Reschedule an entire line when stock on back order is scheduled to arrive, using a new order.
  • Release what stock is available, complete the order and reschedule a subsequent date when remaining stock is scheduled to arrive on a new order.
  • Be able to invoice for goods dispatched.
  • Send communications when products are on back order.
  • Retain all the lines on your original purchase order – we will process the back order on your behalf meaning you’ll retain your place on the ‘first come / first served’ list.

The manual service is already operating successfully with 10 suppliers but roll out to all 963 eDirect suppliers will take time as many of our suppliers’ business processes may be impacted in some way as we ‘design out’ the old ways of working.

The project is currently designing the solution in detail, working through the interdependencies of all our internal systems and processes that will need to change, prioritising suppliers and recruiting resources.

When this is complete, we’ll be able to more accurately forecast how and when the solution will be available, but we are driving hard for Q1/Q2 2024 timescales.

Further details will follow as we work through the fastest route to fully enable this service and achieve the benefits for you as our valued customers.

Common enquiries from our current eDirect customers