Thursday, 29 May 2014

NHS Procurement Tsar meets the Fat Controllers.

The NHS' new procurement tsar looks as if they may have an interesting first challenge - working out
a procurement strategy for 'fat clubs'. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed three providers who can deliver, what appears to be, NHS funded places at 'fat clubs'.

The challenge now is how the Tsar will approach the procurement of 'fat clubs' to maximise the purchasing power of the NHS.

With only three providers operating through a network of local clubs we should see some interesting procurement questions answered.
  1. Are the local providers endorsed by NICE?
  2. Who would be the contracting bodies - the national or local providers?
  3. Will payment by results be used?
  4. Will the providers collude and carve delivery?
  5. How will alternative providers respond to potentially be excluded from delivering the service as they don't have NICE endorsement?
  6. How will the EU procurement rule be complied with?
  7. Somewhat tongue in cheek, will we see a lean approach pursued?
  8. What evaluation weighting will be used?
  9. Will the Tsar be able to shape up?

1 comment:

  1. Public Health Deaprtments have already been running services like these for years with arrangements with WeightWatchers and Slimming World which are now under the watchful eye of Local Government not the NHS....

    These services are presently exempt from the EU Regs however they may not be in future.

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