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NHS collaboration set to achieve savings of £6.5 million

OGCBUYING.SOLUTIONS News Release (Ref: NHS07/07) issued by The Government News Network on 13 August 2008

Six NHS collaborative purchasing organisations have put together a ground- breaking IT hardware deal with the support of OGCbuying.solutions which is projected to deliver more than £6.5million of savings in the first year alone.

The Collaborative Procurement Hubs, which in total represent 220 Trusts across England, together secured the deal for desktop and laptop PCs.

The NHS is one of the largest buyers of IT in the UK, procuring, on average, 120,000 such hardware devices a year.

The NHS CPHs involved were assisted by OGCbuying.solutions, NHS Connecting for Health and the London Procurement Programme (LPP).

The six hubs involved in the deal are:

- Healthcare Purchasing Consortium (representing NHS Trusts in West Midlands, Luton and London)

- East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub

- Yorkshire & Humber Commercial Procurement Collaborative

- PRO-CURE (South Central England)

- North-West Collaborative Procurement Hub

- PRO-NE (North East of England)

Dave Smith, category manager, ICT Procurement - Hardware of OGCbuying.solutions, welcomed the deal as "truly a collaborative procurement". Adding:

"The six procurement Hubs recognised that their requirements for IT equipment were common. It made sense, therefore, to take full advantage of this excellent opportunity to collaborate.

"OGCbuying.solutions was brought in at an early stage and helped to facilitate the collaboration and assisted with the procurement. NHS Connecting for Health were approached to input into the technical aspects of the procurement and to ensure alignment with the NHS National Programme for IT.

"From the outset, the Hubs were keen to work together to aggregate their volumes, and to apply their joint buying power in the marketplace.

"Buying Solutions provided the facilitation and project management for the procurement as well as advice and guidance, but, without doubt, the hard work was done by the Hubs themselves.

"This has laid the foundations for future collaborative work between the NHS, OGCbuying.solutions and the wider public sector."

Speaking on behalf of the six hubs, Gareth Davies from PRO-CURE, the CPH representing Trusts across the South Central region, said:

"This project involving the procurement of 52,000 desktops and 8,500 laptops has enabled us to build on the successes of individual Hubs, to share expertise and to achieve a great deal for our NHS Trusts. The contract means Trusts will now be able to buy higher specification hardware while at the same time saving at least 20% on previous prices.

Raj Sandhu of the Healthcare Purchasing Consortium commented:

"Collaboration is nothing new to the CPHs however a collaboration exercise of this scale consisting of a team of individuals from six different regional organisations representing 220 NHS Trusts was a significant challenge we all recognised. We have been able to put aside local agendas in order to successfully construct a deal with our suppliers and deliver real benefit to the NHS."

Meanwhile Trevor Ingham from the North West Collaborative Procurement Hub added:

"We are sending out a clear message to the market that NHS regions are working together to get the best possible deals.

"We hope this will set the pattern for future projects. Together with my counterparts in other regions we hope to identify other areas from which a collaborative approach will bring greater benefits to our respective member Trusts."

Ends

Note to editors:

About the Collaborative Procurement Hubs

Collaborative Procurement Hubs were established by the Department of Health as a key strand of the Supply Chain Excellence Programme (SCEP) launched in 2004 as part of the Government's drive for greater efficiencies within the NHS.

Their formation has enabled NHS organisations to come together to maximise their collective buying power for a range of goods and services.

Up until March 2008, they have delivered £275 million of savings, five million ahead of their SCEP target, while at the same time, raising the procurement capability of the Trusts.

This deal is one of the latest achievements for Hubs and demonstrates their value to the health economy as a whole. Since they were established, many have evolved to offer not only purchasing services, but enhanced supply chain and commercial services designed to meet the needs of today's NHS.

About OGCbuying.solutions

OGCbuying.solutions is the trading arm of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which is itself an office of HM Treasury.

It provides public sector procurement professionals with a route to the products and services they need to maximise procurement efficiency and value for money. Its contracts and framework agreements offer substantial savings through significant buying power, economies of scale and strategic partnerships.

Rigorous tendering and evaluation processes ensure that products and services are checked for quality, price competitiveness, fitness for purpose and compliance with statutory requirements. These products and services are available through OGCbuying.solutions' framework agreements, managed services and other procurement arrangements.

More details are available on the website: http://www.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is an independent office of HM Treasury, established to help Government deliver best value from its spending. The OGC works with central Government departments and other public sector organisations to provide policy standards and guidance on best practice in procurement, projects and estate management, and monitors and challenges Departments' performance against these standards, grounded in an evidence base of information and assurance.

It promotes and fosters collaborative procurement across the public sector to deliver better value for money and better public services; and it provides innovative ways to develop Government's commercial and procurement capability, including leadership of the Government Procurement Service.

More details are available on our website: http://www.ogc.gov.uk

For further information on the six Hubs, please visit the following websites:

PRO-CURE http://www.pro-cure.nhs.uk
PRO-NE http://www.pro-ne.nhs.uk
HPC http://www.hpc.nhs.uk
Yorkshire & Humberside http://www.yhcpc.nhs.uk
East of England http://www.eoecph.nhs.uk
North West http://www.nwcph.nhs.uk