Crown Commercial Service
 Printable version
|
 E-mail this to a friend
|
New agreement will create increased value and greater savings for London NHS trusts
Buying Solutions and the NHS London Procurement Programme (LPP) have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will outline further opportunities for joint working and collaboration, which will provide increased value and significant cost benefits to London's 71 NHS Trusts.
The LPP, now in its third year, is a programme to drive collaboration among London's 71 NHS Trusts and help deliver procurement savings and efficiencies. This MoU builds upon savings already made by the LPP for NHS services in London and will take advantage of the collective buying power and opportunities available to the public sector through Buying Solutions.
An astonishing 20% of all NHS spend occurs in London, which is an approximate spend of £5 billion on goods and services each year. The LPP aims to deliver £80 million of savings back to the NHS by April 2009, and this MoU is a vital step towards meeting this challenge.
The LPP has already worked with Buying Solutions on a number of successful initiatives including IT hardware, software and mobile telephony with planned areas for future collaboration including:
- Courier Services
- Learning and Development
- Consultancy
- Interim Staffing
- Face to Face Interpretation
Gary Welch, the LPP's Programme Director said today, "The most important thing is that we continue to work together to ensure that pan-government contracting is designed so that the maximum benefit can be realised by NHS organisations. Having achieved some successes in fostering collaboration between trusts in London, tapping into pan-public sector collaborative opportunities is an obvious development for the LPP."
"The MoU allows the LPP to gain access to the procurement resource, expertise and pan-government framework agreements available through Buying Solutions."
Richard Kirk, Sector Manager - Health at Buying Solutions added, "This new MoU will provide us with a platform for much closer working between Buying Solutions and the NHS in London. The opportunities created by this MoU will allow the LPP and the London NHS to maximise the savings benefits their aggregated spend can deliver through our public sector framework agreements."
"Buying Solutions will also benefit from working with the LPP and the London NHS by being able to draw on their experience and expertise to ensure that our future procurements will meet the needs of the London NHS."
ENDS
About Buying Solutions
Buying Solutions is an Executive Agency of the Office of Government Commerce in the Treasury. We are the national procurement partner for UK public services.
We have extensive expertise in procurement, with over 500,000 products and services delivered through over 600 suppliers, in ICT, property and office solutions, energy, travel and professional services.
Our EU-compliant, benchmarked framework agreements and other procurement arrangements enable organisations to deliver improved value for money in their commercial activities. We also provide expertise and professional support to our customers.
More details are available on the website: http://www.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk
Media contact:
Ben Heppenstall
ben.heppenstall@buyingsolutions.gsi.gov.uk
