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Procurement and Contracting

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Procurement is central to driving quality and value. We want to help you achieve your goals and our people have the insight, expertise and tools to analyse healthcare markets; advising on market development and procurement opportunities so your organisation reaps the benefits.

NECS Healthcare Procurement specialises in the commissioning of healthcare services and deliverables to comply with the new Health Service (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 and also has vast experience of non-healthcare procurement projects. Projects are aligned to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended), applying full regulations as well as the Light Touch Regime.

    Our offer

    Commissioning healthcare procurement services with NECS can offer a range of discounted support packages or bespoke offers on request.

     

    • Extensive experience and knowledge of healthcare procurement with excellent understanding of the new Provider Selection Regime Regulations (PSR) to advise and support relevant authorities through commissioning and decision making.
    • We deliver robust evaluation strategies designed to support your organisational needs and achieve best quality outcomes for services and patients.
    • Access to tools, documents, and processes to support the audit requirements and transparency of PSR.
    • Robust market analysis and landscape reporting tools specific to needs of the service to manage and evidence decision making aligned to the Most Suitable Provider Process.
    • Experienced procurement leads to support competitive processes under PSR with robust systems, documents and tools compliant to requirements and evidence to defend representations.
    • Support to produce the required annual audit requirements of these regulations.
    • Access to NECS Contracting Platform (created by the NHS for the NHS) which supports the management of Regulation 20 and the 5 key criteria, with reporting options to evidence compliance and audit reporting.
    • Bespoke commissioning options including focused market engagement, service reviews, contract management and financial modelling to support efficiencies and scope new and innovative services for patients.
    • Management of conflicts of interest and robust record keeping in line with PSR requirements.
    • Compliance check process for Regulation 20 provider questionnaires in line with Direct Award Process C, Most Suitable Provider and Competitive Process.
    • Ensuring compliant with social value minimum 10% and targets to achieve Net Zero / Carbon Reduction as part of the contract award criteria.
    • Access to the Market Engagement Decision Tool created by NECS to further support decision making related to external factors such as political regional or national drivers, demographic change, and influential impact to identify where there is a need for innovation in specific service areas.
    • Options appraisal reporting to support decision making and risk analysis as part of a relevant authority’s commercial strategy.
    • NECS healthcare procurement team holds a vast knowledge of lessons learned from national and regional experiences and share this with customers as part of continuous improvement processes.
    • Webinars and training can be delivered to provide a general understanding of PSR or focus on specific areas, sharing and building on what we already have developed.

    The benefits

    With the implementation of the new Provider Selection Regime Regulations on 1 January 2024, the NECS healthcare procurement team has already supported and developed tools for customers through the complexities of this new regime.

    As part of the offer from NECS, we will provide a one-hour free information session to navigate through the processes and tools that can be used to support the decision-making process. Our team of qualified MCIPS procurement professionals has years of experience in healthcare specific procurement (as well as non-healthcare), having worked nationally with NHS England and alongside the Department of Health and Social Care PSR implementation team.

    We pride ourselves on achieving the best outcomes for our customers and our highly experienced and knowledgeable team has the insight, expertise and tools to deliver procurement projects to a very high standard.

    Our team has been recognised for our expertise in a number of industry awards:

    • Highly Commended Award for Clinical Procurement in Partnership with NHS England at the 2023 HCSA Awards
    • HCSA Highly Commended – Procurement Team of the Year 2022
    • HSJ Partnership Awards – 2020 Winner – Procurement Project of the Year
    • Go Award – Highly Commended 2019 for Procurement Innovation / Initiative of the year (above £20m) – Buyer Healthcare
    • HSJ Finalist in 2019 for procurement support or service project of the year
    • GO Award – Winner 2018 for Collaboration Award in Healthcare
    • GO Award – Winner 2018 for Procurement Innovation / Initiative of the year – Buyer Healthcare.

    NECS Pricing

    We can offer discounted commercial packages of support or a bespoke model specific to your needs. Please contact us for more details.

     

    Contact the team

    “The commissioning landscape is changing with the introduction of the provider selection regime, understanding what this means and the opportunities it brings is a priority for us. NECS delivered a superb full day awareness raising session enabling us to discuss the new legislation, scenarios and procurement best practice with knowledgeable colleagues helping us to begin to shape the future. This was a starting point, and we are looking forward to future sessions with NECS.”

    Matthew Groom

    Director of Health & Justice and Specialised Commissioning, NHS England North-East and Yorkshire

    Case studies

    Procurement of specialist led Primary Care orthodontic services

    Procurement of specialist led Primary Care orthodontic services

    Challenge The NECS Healthcare Services Procurement team undertook a large collaborative procurement exercise to deliver 77 individual specialist led primary care orthodontic services contracts (lots) across the North of England with a total contract value in excess of...

    Procurement for Prisons

    Procurement for Prisons

    The challenge A large number of contracts which provided healthcare services to Her Majesty's Prisons (HMP) in the North West locality were due to expire and the NECS Healthcare Procurement team was asked to lead the procurement of new services for NHS England and NHS...