A procurement hub forNHS trustsin the North West of
England has saved £33m over two years with abusiness intelligence integration
project.
The North West Collaborative Procurement Hub was set up in 2005
and oversees £1.2bn of spend a year across 39 trusts.
In January, the hub implemented the project using QlikTech's
Qlikview system. Jan Nangle, IS manager for the
procurement hub, said the system had increased the speed of data
collection and had improved analysis capabilities.
"The data we collect is now more relevant and up to date,
because we have automated the way data is collected from individual
trusts," she said.
"Before, managers from each category had to go to each trust,
access information, and bring it together on an annual basis."
Each NHS trust has evolved its own financial system. The hub has
developed the ability to bring information from these systems
together and look at the aggregated spend across category areas.
Staff can see how many suppliers they are dealing with and come up
with strategy.
Nangle said different categories of spending needed different
systems. "It is all about finding the right value for money and
finding the right practice.
"In IT, for example, we can come up with a standard. But things
like surgeons' gloves and hip replacements usually need to go
through a clinical exercise before it is right. Trials will be done
to make sure everyone is happy."
Communication between trusts can also improve as a result of
such initiatives, with opportunities for data sharing and
benchmarking.
Nangle said, "It has improved information quality and the deals
we can come up with, and is a significant step forward."