Building capacity, value and sustainability: highlights from the June Clinical Procurement Forum

Managed Neutral Vendor Services framework

Trusts are always looking for ways to bring in proven clinical expertise without adding pressure to their own teams. Amie Allday introduced the Managed Neutral Vendor Services framework, live since earlier this year, as one way to do exactly that.

The framework gives trusts access to fully managed clinical services – both outsourced and insourced – from ten suppliers, covering everything from equipment and consumables to training, maintenance, staffing and compliance. Because services are tailored to the contracting organisation rather than built around a particular model or manufacturer, trusts get a solution shaped to their own needs. Contracts are awarded through mini competition with fully transparent costs, giving a clear view of total cost and genuine value for money. If your team is exploring managed clinical services, get in touch with the Hub to talk through how the framework could work for you.

Value-based healthcare: transnasal endoscopy across the East of England

With waiting lists remaining a priority for providers across the region, many teams are exploring how to create additional capacity without simply adding more of the same. Aneta White from NHS Supply Chain set out how value-based healthcare (VBHC) supports that shift – moving the conversation beyond unit cost to focus on the whole patient pathway, reducing complications, avoiding readmissions and releasing capacity.

Transnasal endoscopy (TNE) is a strong example of this in practice. Compared with traditional gastroscopy, TNE offers providers a way to work through endoscopy waiting lists more effectively, including by moving suitable procedures into outpatient settings or Community Diagnostic Centres. To support that decision-making, NHS Supply Chain has built a real-time dashboard showing referral-to-treatment performance, alongside a capacity and waiting list simulation tool that models how changes like conversion rates and capacity uplifts could reduce backlogs – particularly as demand grows from cancer screening programmes. The Care Pathway team is on hand across the East of England to help providers explore what this could look like for their own pathways – a conversation worth having if capacity is high on your agenda.

Procedure Packs framework

As theatre and community teams work to reduce sourcing time and unnecessary variation, standardising procedure packs is emerging as a simple, high-impact lever. Ellie Addison from NHS Supply Chain updated members on the Procedure Packs framework, running until March 2028 across stocked and eDirect supply routes, split into national standardised packs and bespoke packs tailored to individual trusts or ICSs.

The ambition is for around 80% of procedure requirements to be met through national standard packs, with the remaining 20% supplied as supplemental items to reflect local policy, patient need and clinician preference – all shaped by ongoing clinical evidence and utilisation data. Ellie’s examples from urinary catheterisation and IV cannulation packs showed just how much variation currently exists across similar products, pointing to a real opportunity for consolidation, cost efficiency and reduced packaging waste. Trusts looking to simplify their approach to procedure packs can explore the framework through the Hub.

Regional sustainability

With the NHS working towards net zero and a fully circular approach to medical products, teams across the region are looking for practical, achievable ways to build sustainability into day-to-day decisions. Stella Cockerill shared how that ambition is taking shape locally and nationally, starting with the legal duty within the Health and Care Act to consider environmental impact in every decision.

The national Design for Life programme sets out a vision for a fully circular medtech system by 2045, and regional Greener NHS leads have already been building momentum – including work on reusable tourniquets, blood pressure cuffs and reusable theatre hats, alongside a broader national reduce-and-reuse product list. Looking ahead, the NHS Net Zero Supplier Roadmap will ask suppliers to publicly report emissions targets and publish a Carbon Reduction Plan from April 2027, with guidance, webinars and NHS England’s Sustainable Supplier Accelerator Programme available to help teams prepare early. Closer to home, the “Caring hands don’t always need gloves” campaign continues to help trusts reduce unnecessary glove use, with ready-to-use posters, digital assets and badges available now.

PAF insight, customer dashboard and surgeons’ gloves in maternity

As ICSs look to get more value from the data they already hold, Paul Rochford from NHS Supply Chain showed how the Purchasing and Analytics Framework (PAF) dashboard helps ICSs scope projects, set expectations and prioritise where support is needed, and how the regional data visualisation tools let teams drill from a high-level regional view right down to trust-level detail – all accessible, with training, through the My Supply Chain platform.

What’s next?

The next forum will be on 24 September. Whether it’s releasing capacity, standardising procurement or building sustainability into everyday decisions, the Hub is here to help turn these opportunities into action. We look forward to welcoming colleagues to the next Clinical Procurement Forum to continue the conversation.

Contact Jill Kettle: [email protected]

A recording of the event is available upon request via [email protected]

By Jill Kettle, Senior Clinical Products and Services Specialist