NHS trusts face ‘teething problems’_2
19 July 2012
NHS trusts may face difficulties in incorporating 1,200 procurement staff from NHS Supplies’ customer services division, according to those contacted by SM.
NHS trusts may face difficulties in incorporating 1,200 procurement staff from NHS Supplies’ customer services division, according to those contacted by SM.
The trusts were given until the end of October to complete the move, one of several changes to be made after a Cabinet Office review of trust procurement earlier this year. From April 2000, a new NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency will take over responsibility for strategic procurement from NHS Supplies, which will be left as a wholesale and logistics outfit. Around 60 per cent of England’s 369 NHS trusts used the customer services teams to carry out procurement strategy. NHS Supplies denied the timetable was slipping. “Trusts are all on track in transferring staff and we don’t anticipate problems,” said a spokeswoman. However, trusts will experience teething problems, predicted Stephen Jones, head of purchasing and supply at Salford Royal Hospitals NHS Trust. “The local purchasing teams that have been working for NHS Supplies will be more vulnerable as they assume more responsibility. Before, they were protected by a national organisation, but now they will be out on their own.” Many bodies are also having to draw up a procurement strategy, after the review found that only 20 per cent already had one. The plans, which must be completed by April, must produce savings of 3 per cent a year. Jones said this could be a double blow to some trusts, as many of the bodies that had been using NHS Supplies customer service units did not have a purchasing strategy. “There is a tendency for trusts that have a serious view of their purchasing to manage their own units,” he said. Some trusts are already insourcing in advance of the government review, a trend highlighted in the NHS Supplies annual report, released last month. Salford Royal Hospital, which spends £30 million a year on goods and services, decided to take its purchasing team in-house one year ago. “Belonging to the trust has helped us operationally,” said Jones. “There is no longer the view that our problems belong to a second organisation - there is more acceptance of our ideas by management and others.” Insourcing procurement also forced trusts to take a more strategic view of their purchasing and supply, he added. Stephen Dickinson, head of purchasing at Kingston Hospital NHS Trust, said that taking procurement on-site meant that the purchasing team could “focus entirely on the trust’s requests” and become “part of its structure”. Kingston was the first of the then 57 trusts to introduce its own in-house purchasing team in 1991.
The trusts were given until the end of October to complete the move, one of several changes to be made after a Cabinet Office review of trust procurement earlier this year. From April 2000, a new NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency will take over responsibility for strategic procurement from NHS Supplies, which will be left as a wholesale and logistics outfit. Around 60 per cent of England’s 369 NHS trusts used the customer services teams to carry out procurement strategy. NHS Supplies denied the timetable was slipping. “Trusts are all on track in transferring staff and we don’t anticipate problems,” said a spokeswoman. However, trusts will experience teething problems, predicted Stephen Jones, head of purchasing and supply at Salford Royal Hospitals NHS Trust. “The local purchasing teams that have been working for NHS Supplies will be more vulnerable as they assume more responsibility. Before, they were protected by a national organisation, but now they will be out on their own.” Many bodies are also having to draw up a procurement strategy, after the review found that only 20 per cent already had one. The plans, which must be completed by April, must produce savings of 3 per cent a year. Jones said this could be a double blow to some trusts, as many of the bodies that had been using NHS Supplies customer service units did not have a purchasing strategy. “There is a tendency for trusts that have a serious view of their purchasing to manage their own units,” he said. Some trusts are already insourcing in advance of the government review, a trend highlighted in the NHS Supplies annual report, released last month. Salford Royal Hospital, which spends £30 million a year on goods and services, decided to take its purchasing team in-house one year ago. “Belonging to the trust has helped us operationally,” said Jones. “There is no longer the view that our problems belong to a second organisation - there is more acceptance of our ideas by management and others.” Insourcing procurement also forced trusts to take a more strategic view of their purchasing and supply, he added. Stephen Dickinson, head of purchasing at Kingston Hospital NHS Trust, said that taking procurement on-site meant that the purchasing team could “focus entirely on the trust’s requests” and become “part of its structure”. Kingston was the first of the then 57 trusts to introduce its own in-house purchasing team in 1991.
