The NHS spends more than £17bn on goods and services every year. To ensure that enough funds are available for direct patient care, the efficient procurement of these goods and services is paramount. To secure value for money, effective management is essential, something that has been challenging in the past with the many individual NHS trusts.
2009 saw the launch of the Commercial Operating Model and, just over a year on, the NHS appears to be heading for another restructuring; this time concerning local practitioners. The Primary Care Trusts will be replaced by groupings of practitioners' surgeries, which will either run the back office services covered by the PCTs or 'outsource' them to local authorities or the private sector; this could make a fundamental difference to NHS procurement.
2009 saw the launch of the Commercial Operating Model and, just over a year on, the NHS appears to be heading for another restructuring; this time concerning local practitioners. The Primary Care Trusts will be replaced by groupings of practitioners' surgeries, which will either run the back office services covered by the PCTs or 'outsource' them to local authorities or the private sector; this could make a fundamental difference to NHS procurement.
