St Mary's is first with Zanzibar hub

An NHS hospital trust in London has become the first organisation to use the Zanzibar online marketplace set up by government agency OGCbuying.solutions.

The Zanzibar e-procurement system was created by OGCbuying.solutions, an agency of the Treasury’s Office for Government Commerce, as part of a range of initiatives designed to cut procurement costs across the public sector.

The transaction by St Mary’s – which saw it purchase three nurses’ tunics for £20 – is the first use of Zanzibar by any organisation and marks the start of St Mary’s switch to using the new system for all future procurement. The trust is expecting to save £4m in procurement costs over the next five years.

Zanzibar allows electronic transactions with all the trust’s suppliers, including small and medium-sized businesses. It also provides spending intelligence, allowing users to re-negotiate contracts and manage procurement efficiently.

The move to Zanzibar at St Mary’s was managed by PA Shared Services, while finance application provider CedarOpenAccounts developed a connector to enable end-to-end online transactions between St Mary’s and the Zanzibar system.

The trust is one of five major NHS organisations in north-west London – with a combined procurement budget of around £500m – that are committed to rolling out Zanzibar.

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