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Publish Date : 04-Feb-2015

NHS North West Procurement Development has joined hands with the University of Liverpool's Management School to launch a research program that will study the impact that value-based procurement could have on the NHS. The feasibility study will examine the way handling categories in the NHS horizontally throughout patient pathways – procurement's involvement across the experience of the patient, instead of vertically down categories and costs, could assist in identifying value through procurement for the NHS.

It will focus on three areas of spend – primary hip and knee prostheses, pressure area care (such as mattresses) and print management – to consider the way procurement tools like life-cycle costing and pricing models could enable to drive value in complex NHS procurement. This could include sourcing products focusing on decreasing the time spent in the operating theatre, or studying large vendor's dominance in the NHS whose power could lower their incentives to innovate.

The project is being led by a lecturer in strategic procurement and operations management, Jo Meehan, with two other academics on behalf of the University of Liverpool. Meehan said : "There are different types of cost in the NHS – suppliers’ costs, time, people and revenue – and they are not all equal. And while there is a great deal of measurement and management within the NHS, the right data is not necessarily being measured nor linked effectively to procurement processes. We want to question what value means to a range of NHS stakeholders, how can we measure it, how we destroy it and how suppliers destroy value."

Assistant director of NHS North West Procurement Development, Brian Mangan, is heading the six-member project team from the health service, noted the pressures to reduce costs in the NHS that have affected the way procurement works. He said : "We can look to making savings based on price cuts but eventually we are going to reach a plateau."

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