Background
The East of England NHS Collaborative Procurement Hub (EOECPH) identified a need for improved access to high-quality spend data to enhance decision-making processes. The goal was to enable clinical, category management, and procurement teams to make informed purchasing decisions, ensuring the right products are procured through the most efficient routes, ultimately improving patient care.
The Project
The Data team in the Hub’s Operations division undertook a project to roll out the AdviseInc Platform+ system across all acute, mental health, and community trusts in the East of England. This initiative aimed to provide trusts with access to enhanced regional spend data and analytics through AdviseInc’s price benchmarking and procurement dashboard. The platform’s user-friendly interface and standardised data collection methods allowed for a more detailed regional overview, especially for accounts payable data.
At ICS level, patterns, trends, or any identified saving opportunities have the potential to be rolled out across all the trusts in their patch. Information can be shared with other organisations or ICSs, which has the potential to be replicated across the country and, therefore, nationally. It also gave the Hub the ability to have a complete regional view of organisational spend. The AdviseInc project substantially enhances the NHS’s capacity to deliver value for money.
The Hub facilitated regular operational calls between AdviseInc and trust leads, supported by ongoing training and workshops. These efforts ensured that users could maximise the platform’s benefits, with over 200 regular users across the region.
Trusts can use the platform to:
- Ensure pricing parity of products
- Make a comparison of supply routes
- Identify standardisation and rationalisation opportunities
- View and analyse spend information and compare against their peers
- Improve efficiency in daily procurement operations
- Use detailed analytics in a user-friendly system for multiple departments across different levels of the workforce
- Access AdviseInc’s insights team, specialists in NHS procurement analytics, who create fixed and bespoke reports, such as deep dives into pacemakers, trauma, and stents
- Access additional analysis as part of the service offering, including price change, SSDP/HCTED (re Supply Chain high-cost usage devices), and Important Customer Notices (ICNs) about product recalls.
Thanks to feedback and collaboration between trusts, coordinated by the Hub, extra features were added into AdviseInc’s Platform data analysis dashboard to meet certain trusts’ specific requirements, thus improving the value of the service to all participating trusts. For example, Norfolk and Waveney ICB requested data capture and analysis of Important Customer Notices (ICNs) to meet their specific requirements. AdviseInc was sufficiently flexible and accommodating to incorporate the development of this feature into the system.
The spend analytics AdviseInc Platform system also actively supports national networks, including imaging and pathology.
The Outcome
The implementation of the AdviseInc Platform means trusts now have visibility into their spending patterns, enabling them to identify opportunities for efficiencies and savings. They can easily see whether they’re paying more than they should for particular products, discover the optimum or preferred procurement route, what products their peers are ordering, prices they’re paying and which supplier they’re using. Using the platform, any off-framework spending is revealed, allowing trusts to focus on reducing unnecessary expenditure.
Key outcomes include:
- Identified savings of £353k on foam dressings
- Potential savings of £2m on pacemakers and coronary stents
- Regional opportunities for product switching (£2.2m), route switching (£828k), and price benchmarking (£61.5m).
The initiative has reduced the region’s annual spending by millions of pounds, demonstrating a significant return on investment. These savings have been redirected towards patient care, helping to address backlogs, reduce waiting times, and improve patient outcomes.
Pacemakers: AdviseInc data analysis showed surgeons that buying a premium pacemaker in a large cardio centre gave no clinical benefit and the same supplier sold a better value product that delivered better patient outcomes. Result: £250k pa savings.
Orthopaedic hips: Reducing the unwarranted variation in orthopaedic hips by harnessing AdviseInc data analysis, which identified high-cost cup usage in a large acute hospital. By changing the mix, costs were reduced by 66% with the same patient outcome. Result: saving £125k pa.
Surgical plates and screws: Surgeons discussing AdviseInc data analysis concluded the expensive way of using plates and screws in trauma surgery was not needed, and they switched to a better value system. Result: same outcomes for patients and £200k savings.
For the roll out of the AdviseInc Platform, the Hub has helped trusts by supporting training sessions, roadshows and collaborative regional meetings. The platform provides trusts with unprecedented visibility into procurement activities, helping identify cost-saving opportunities and ensuring the right products are purchased at the right prices. The initiative has improved financial efficiency which ultimately has enhanced the quality of patient care.