Collaborating with our Customers: How we work with you to refine our services
At NOE CPC we have a wide range of frameworks and services to suit your procurement needs, and we are constantly looking at ways to both improve our current offering and expand into new areas.
One of the many ways we do this is by speaking to you – the people who will be using our agreements – to find out what is working well, what services you might require and what new products we can provide. This includes speaking to various procurement groups to get the latest expertise on what services we should be providing.
Our Bulk Oxygen 2022 framework was launched in August with support from the Yorkshire and Humber NHS Pharmaceutical Purchasing Consortium and NOE CPC members. A multi-disciplinary sourcing group made up of pharmacists, estate managers and quality assurance managers, together with procurement and pharmacy leads, had a significant amount of input into the framework.
Working together in both the preparation of the specification and evaluation of tenders submitted has resulted in a framework which was designed to give users total peace of mind and address issues facing healthcare professionals with specific focus on increasing revenues, decreasing costs and improving the overall healthcare management process.
Our Pharmacy Clean Room Services framework was also launched following discussions with the Yorkshire and Humber NHS Pharmaceutical Purchasing Consortium and NOE CPC members, replacing our previous framework for this service. The renewal updated and re-evaluated the complete requirements to ensure the framework met aseptic standards.
A multi-disciplinary sourcing group made up of lead principal pharmacy technicians, QA managers and production managers, together with procurement and pharmacy leads, had a significant amount of input into the framework. Working together in both the preparation of the specification and evaluation of tenders submitted has resulted in a framework offering total peace of mind within the pharmacy preparation environment.
Linda Hardy and Paul Turton, of the Yorkshire and Humber NHS Pharmaceutical Purchasing Consortium, said they had worked with NOE CPC's Category Manager for Pharmacy, Paul-Dunn Jones on a number of contracts over the years.
They said: "The team are really helpful and we always learn and develop throughout the process.
Paul and Sarah Green (Procurement Support Officer) are great at keeping us on track during the development of and any subsequent changes to contracts."
Our Contrast Media framework was launched in November 2020 with the support of the Yorkshire Pharmacy Consortia and NOE CPC members. We updated and re-evaluated the requirements of this framework to ensure it met current clinical demands and supported development in clinical practice.
We also collaborate with other NHS framework providers where we can reduce duplication in the market, share expertise and bring down costs. The IT Hardware and Services (LINK 3) framework, which replaced our successful LINK2: IT Hardware and Services agreement, was re-procured in collaboration with NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS). The framework provides trusts and other public sector authorities with a free to access, compliant and cost-effective way to procure all end user device requirements including desktop PCs, laptops, tablet devices, printers and specialist healthcare-related IT hardware such as laptop carts and clinical displays.
As well as speaking to our customers to help inform us on our range of services, we also support our customers’ experience of using our services by helping them collaborate with one another through our Workforce Cluster Groups, helping them make savings and monitor the performance of their suppliers.
NOE CPC created a stakeholder group of trusts with the aim of collaborating and managing the performance of their master vendor Maxxima, which supplies them with Allied Health Professional (AHP) and Highly Specialised Service (HSS) staff.
Trusts within the group had experienced some performance issues with the supplier, ranging from inflated rates being offered, lack of consistency in levels of service, and concerns around efforts to fill trust requirements in hard to fill regions. Following a discussion among the trusts as to how this could be managed, a decision was made to go out to the market with a further competition under the NHS Workforce Alliance Clinical and Healthcare Staffing framework to see if any other suppliers were able to support a master vendor agreement using one collaborative agreement.
A full collaborative further competition procurement was undertaken, led by Category Procurement Specialist Tina Shires. Tina supported the development of the full ITT pack including the specification, as well as managing the evaluation and moderation process through to awarding the contract to Maxxima.
Supplier performance is now monitored and measured via a KPI dashboard that was created in line with the agreed contract. The group is also utilising Teams which provides a workspace for shared discussion, an area to store files, and host the KPI dashboard. The project was delivered on time and generated savings of £350,000.
In September, we brought together the various Workforce Cluster Groups we lead, from across Yorkshire and the Humber, at our Joint Cluster Workforce Workshop, held at The Source at Meadowhall. The event was an opportunity for the groups’ members to share learning and good practice, identify common challenges and potential solutions, priorities and look at opportunities to improve the cluster facilitation to maximise value.
We received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the event, which had a wide range of speakers on various NHS workforce issues, and we are looking at holding another event in 2023.