Procurement decisions in the NHS rarely exist in isolation. A change to a product, service or supply arrangement can affect workflows, clinical services and, ultimately, patients.
That makes practical NHS experience valuable in procurement. Across the East of England NHS Collaborative Procurement Hub (the Hub), colleagues bring knowledge shaped by careers across the health service, often long before they joined the Hub.
Following Pharmacy Technician Day, we spoke to colleagues who began their careers as pharmacy technicians. Their journeys have taken them into different roles and teams, but the experience they gained has stayed with them, shaping how they understand challenges, work with NHS organisations and approach procurement today.
Understanding what happens beyond procurement
For Julia Asplin, Assistant Director of Procurement – Pharmacy and Healthcare, a career spanning pharmacy purchasing and several hospital pharmacy functions developed an understanding of how services connect. Her experience includes purchasing, pharmacy automation, stores and distribution, homecare medicines, dispensary and aseptic services.
That breadth now helps Julia consider procurement decisions through an operational lens.
My operational pharmacy experience helps me understand how decisions made through procurement will work in practice.
Julia Asplin, Assistant Director of Procurement – Pharmacy and Healthcare
Julia considers the wider effect on medicines supply, workflows, digital systems, clinical services and patients. She also brings that thinking to regional initiatives, including the Hub’s work with GS1 UK to understand medicines traceability and barcoding across pharmacy services.
It is an approach that connects frontline experience with opportunities for wider improvement.
“Procurement should not happen at a distance from the people who will use the resulting services.”
Skills that travel across teams
The value of a pharmacy background is equally visible outside the Hub’s Pharmacy and Healthcare team.
Amie Allday is now a Procurement Specialist in the Procurement, Assurance and Compliance team. Her pharmacy career began as a Pharmacy Assistant before she trained as a Pharmacy Technician. Her experience went on to include chemotherapy preparation, medicines management, final checking, medicines counselling and a Lead Technician role covering procurement, ward services and homecare.
For Amie, strong communication and people skills are among the qualities that have travelled with her. Pharmacy meant working with everyone from patients and relatives to clinical colleagues and suppliers, each with different needs.
Understanding the importance of delivering safe and efficient services, the NHS should always have patients at the heart of everything we do.
Amie Allday, Procurement Specialist – Procurement, Assurance and Compliance
Her career is a useful reminder that professional experience does not stop being relevant when someone moves teams. It becomes another perspective they can bring to the Hub’s wider work.
Bringing different perspectives to complex challenges
Steven Albery, Procurement Specialist in the Pharmacy and Healthcare team, started his pharmacy career as an assistant in pharmacy stores 20 years ago. He later worked across paediatrics, acute services and mental health, including almost 10 years as a Pharmacy Technician Team Manager.
That experience helps him understand the pressures facing pharmacy teams and bring a different perspective to the challenges they encounter.
There are several situations I can think of where being able to offer real-life lived experiences makes a huge difference to the advice I give.
Steven Albery, Procurement Specialist – Pharmacy and Healthcare
Steven also sees the value of that experience extending beyond pharmacy.
“There are several technicians at the Hub, all of whom come with a huge wealth of knowledge and experiences. These skills are also highly transferable into non-pharmacy-specific procurements.”
Bringing the patient perspective into workforce procurement
Katherine Moore, Assistant Director of Procurement – Workforce, trained as a pharmacy technician in community pharmacy before moving into hospital pharmacy. She went on to work in medicines management, homecare and pharmacy procurement at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn. Her medicines management role was intensely patient-facing, spending her days at patients’ bedsides, understanding their medicines and working alongside multidisciplinary teams.
That experience has stayed with Kate. It shapes not only how she communicates, but how she approaches procurement, relationships and the services the Hub helps NHS organisations put in place.
For Kate, understanding what somebody genuinely needs is fundamental to both pharmacy and procurement. In medicines management, that meant building enough trust with a patient to understand their medication history. Today, it might mean working with an NHS organisation to get beneath the initial request, understand the challenge and develop the right service specification.
There are practical similarities too. Pharmacy and procurement are both process driven and require close attention to detail. Kate’s later experience leading pharmacy procurement and homecare also involved sourcing medicines and establishing services for patients. She sees the underlying principle as remarkably similar to her work today: understand the requirement, bring the right people together and establish a service that ultimately supports patient care.
It’s never just a procurement. There’s always a patient at the end of it.
Katherine Moore, Assistant Director of Procurement – Workforce
Developing solutions that work in practice
Before joining the Hub, Richard Dixon-Ramsey MCIPS RegPharmTech, Procurement Specialist in the Pharmacy and Healthcare team, was a Pharmacy Procurement Manager at Mid and South Essex. His responsibilities covered pharmacy procurement, IT, stores and homecare, giving him experience of both operational and commercial pharmacy.
Today, that knowledge helps Richard look beyond the procurement process when developing solutions.
My pharmacy technician background helps me understand the practical questions we need to ask, rather than looking at it purely from a procurement perspective.
Richard Dixon-Ramsey MCIPS RegPharmTech, Procurement Specialist – Pharmacy and Healthcare
When developing specifications, for example, Richard can consider pharmacy workflows, governance requirements and what teams will need from suppliers. The aim is simple: procurement arrangements which work in practice, not only on paper.
Keeping patients at the centre
Joe Bassett, Assistant Director of Procurement – Pharmacy and Healthcare Services and Chair of the National Homecare Medicines Committee, qualified as a pharmacy technician at West Suffolk Hospital. He subsequently worked in community pharmacy and homecare before joining the Hub. Joe notes that he is no longer registered as a pharmacy technician, having allowed his registration to lapse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The direct patient experience from that stage of his career remains particularly important to him.
All too often our day-to-day activity is dominated by words on a page and numbers on a spreadsheet; remembering every number is a person trying to live their best life is both a constant battle and inspiration.
Joe Bassett, Assistant Director of Procurement – Pharmacy and Healthcare Services; Chair of the National Homecare Medicines Committee
Joe says this perspective has helped shape his work around homecare, enabling patients to access specialist hospital medicines and associated clinical care in their own homes.
Expertise that stays with us
These career journeys have taken different routes, but their pharmacy experience has stayed with them.
It is there in the practical questions they ask, the relationships they build and their understanding of how services work on the frontline. It is also there in something harder to quantify: an instinct to look beyond the procurement process to the people affected by the decisions being made.
Together, their stories reveal the depth of experience behind the Hub’s job titles. Our colleagues bring not only commercial expertise, but knowledge shaped by working across NHS services and alongside patients, clinicians and multidisciplinary teams.
That breadth of experience helps the Hub understand challenges from different perspectives and connect procurement decisions with the realities of delivering NHS services.
Bring our expertise to your procurement challenges
Every procurement challenge has its own operational context. Our teams combine commercial expertise with experience from across the NHS to help organisations understand their requirements and develop practical ways forward.
Talk to the Hub about your procurement priorities and how we can support your organisation.
For pharmacy and healthcare procurement enquiries, contact [email protected]
For wider support, or to explore how Hub membership could benefit your organisation, contact [email protected]