The Healthcare Purchasing Consortium plans to use
e-procurement to save £500,000 a year through improved efficiency
and reduced costs.
The consortium, which represents some of the UK's largest NHS
trusts, will roll out a procurement system from ADB to link
organisations to an online catalogue of supplies.
Mike Hyatt, head of supply chain and finance at the HPC, said,
"This will give us a data source to enable effective negotiation
with our suppliers because we will know what the trusts' uptake of
specific products is. We will be able to connect multiple trusts
and their various financial and information systems to a single
online catalogue, enabling NHS clinical staff to spend less time on
administration and focus on delivering quality healthcare services
to our patients."
The contract management and catalogue system will initially be
rolled out to six NHS trusts in Birmingham and London.