Collaborative procurement hub, NHS London Procurement Partnership (‘LPP’), is to build an Outpatient Pharmacy Dispensing framework agreement, supporting trust pharmacy teams to meet some of the requirements of Lord Carter’s report ‘Operational Productivity and Performance in English NHS Acute Hospitals: Unwarranted Variations’.
LPP’s Commercial and Business Development Director, Mick Corti, comments: “Pharmacy activity is one of the areas under the Carter spotlight, with a call for pharmacy staff to be more clinically focused – as a consequence, Trusts are likely to look at other ways of dealing with outpatient dispensing to free-up clinical time. Believed to be the first of its kind, the aim of this framework is to provide a fast track procurement solution for Trusts choosing to outsource their outpatient pharmacy dispensing services.”
The framework – expected to go live at the end of 2016 - will enable LPP members and NHS organisations throughout the UK to accelerate and streamline the procurement process. It will be accessible only through further competition, but LPP’s intention is to achieve a degree of standardisation of headline governance, and an outline specification that will simplify the process for Trust and supplier alike. To enhance the local process, LPP will be creating a further competition toolkit. This will seek to standardise the approach and simplify processes for supplier and NHS organisations alike.
LPP published a Prior Information Notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) on 10th June, inviting interested suppliers to engage with LPP and participate in the development of this framework agreement – the deadline for responses is 30th June. As Project Manager Marc Osborne says: “It is critical to the success of the project that we understand how suppliers might benefit from streamlined processes.
“Just as critical is the development of a stakeholder group, now underway, NHS London Procurement Partnership information on public sector procurement to assist us in understanding what our customer base is looking for and to help shape the generic specification and framework agreement documentation, as well as what is needed for the toolkit.”
