Trading Transformation Programme
The Trading Transformation Programme aims to simplify and modernise how we trade as a business. This transformation is essential to unlock greater value, enhance transparency and ensure consistency across the NHS.
We are redesigning our trading and pricing models to reduce complexity, improve system integration and align with the evolving needs of our stakeholders – from NHS trusts to suppliers.
Programme objectives
- Simplify trading processes to support growth and efficiency.
- Integrate systems to reduce duplication and manual effort.
- Empower NHS organisations with clear, consistent and accessible pricing.
The challenge
- As we have grown as a business and supplied more products to the NHS the complexity of our pricing has also increased.
- We have around 650,000 products on our catalogue with an average of 21 price points per product, this equates to 48 million price points overall.
- Every week we receive 70,000 invoices from our suppliers and receive 210,000 orders which we consolidate into 35,000 invoices for our customers. Managing that is complicated and time consuming.
A Vision for the Future Pricing Landscape
Simplified
Simplified pricing rules:
- Improved efficiency through the reduction in complexity.
- Enable clear conversations with customers around providing the best value.
- Supporting standardisation and savings delivery to the NHS.
Transparent
Ability of all customers to clearly see products and pricing via our catalogue to:
- Give confidence we provide the best value to our healthcare partners.
- Ensure price parity across the NHS.
- Allow healthcare providers to make quick, informed procurement decisions and facilitate better working practices throughout NHS Supply Chain.
Integrated
Integrating to a single pricing management system:
- Automation to minimise time spent manually entering data.
- Enable end-to-end pricing management and reporting, reducing pricing errors and invoice queries.
- Connect and streamline customer pricing, to minimise customer invoice queries and provide the best value to the NHS.
Stakeholder Needs
Government
funded
One national price
Non-government
funded
Clear and available
pricing
Ways
of working
One single
interfaced system
Customer
engagement
Simplicity and
transparency enabling
clear value
conversations
Suppliers
Buy prices and invoices match
Next steps
Work is underway to explore the complexities behind the concerns we have identified and to look at what options there could be to resolve these. No decisions have been taken yet.
As part of the process, we will engage with NHS trusts as we develop ideas to simplify the system and commit to keeping our teams and our customers updated on progress.
We know we won’t be able to make these changes overnight. The programme is scheduled to run until the financial year 2027 / 2028. Throughout this period, we will provide regular updates to keep everyone informed about progress and key decisions.
See our Useful Links section to contact your customer service advisor if you have any questions in the meantime.