NHS England is prepared for local resistance to its plan to take greater control over the buying decisions of local trusts, HSJ has reported.
It wants the NHS to adopt “a centre-led commercial model” to realise £2bn in savings and reduce fragmentation, according to an NHS England strategy paper obtained by HSJ.
The drive is to realise benefit for the whole of the NHS, not individual organisations, the paper said.
“We must move away from isolated local commercial arrangements that deliver value for single NHS organisations, which inhibit the ability to leverage our value to act as one system,” it stated.
This would mark a significant shift from the current arrangement, where procurement is controlled at a local level by trusts, increasingly working in concert with their neighbours to use their combined scale to drive cost improvements.
While “some resistance is anticipated”, the paper outlines how “targeted engagement… with procurement and finance teams will provide assurance and build support for the approach”.
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Date: 18 March