Opportunity Knocks but can the NHS shine in buying music lessons?

Personal Budgets have been around in local government for some time.  They are now to be rolled out so that anyone within the NHS Continuing Care programme will be able to request their own Personal Health Budget. What does this mean and are there implications for procurement?

In theory Personal Budgets are the lowest form of devolved decision making you can arrive at and they maximise user choice. The person in need of care, rather than being told 'these are the services you will receive' is given a budget to purchase what they think is most helpful to their personal situation. This could include buying a dog for company, paying for music lessons, or, ... . Theoretically there is no reason we couldn't have the next Choir of the Year made up of recipients singing a song on their experiences of Work Capability Assessments!

£2.7bn a year will be spent on the programme - but could it be spent more effectively and will procurement expertise be drawn upon?

I would like to see commissioning, social services staff and those closest to the future recipient to help design the potential shopping list of services which may be required. I would then like framework agreements put in place which the recipients could access. If the 'price is right' and the quality matches the users need, then the recipient could 'call off' the framework.

Of course for recipients ease of access and visibility of the catalogue would need to match their experience of online shopping - could the NHS beat the best in the use of social media functionality for Personal Budget purchasing?

You may ask:

Return of the iPads

I recently  referred to being asked to produce a business case for iPads. I was astounded that, without any meaningful development of a business case, a self-fulfilling conclusion seemed to have been arrived at that business could no longer be carried out efficiently without this 'must have accessory'. 

Anyway our friends at Apple seemed to have just developed the 'sale of the century'. Now all those procurement and finance people who would advocate the need for a meaningful business case have just been punched in the solar plexus - the House of Commons Administration Committee has apparently now recommended "rapid rollout of suitable mobile table hardware" to all 650 MPs.

It's not that the MPs lack technology to support them in their work; they already have three desktops and two laptops - I suspect also a Blackberry. (I hope someone has asked the question relating to how much slower they travel with all this luggage.  I also hope they have completed an H&S assessment to protect against potential injury.)
Nevertheless,

On bankers' bonuses, MP expenses and GPS.

Few of us will have missed the furore over Hester’s bonus. He is well paid and recognised by some as doing a good job.  Some of the outrage seems to be driven by the morality of rewarding a banker while SMEs struggle to gain banks favour and access credit.  Nevertheless he decided to forgo his bonus.  There appeared to have been some stirring of his moral compass– his GPS.

Some of the pressure on Hester came from politicians.  To some politicians it was immoral to accept such a bonus while many are suffering as a result of the global financial crisis.  It was also viewed as particularly immoral since RBS is one of the banks indebted to the government for its survival. To some politicians it appeared

Policing pitfalls of 'I see, I want, you buy ASAP'

I’ve decided to revisit the NAO report ‘Mobile Technology in Policing’. Previously I focused on the need for robust challenge and to avoid being bullied into bad procurements in pursuit of political expediency. Arresting as that discussion was, the report provides further lessons on how procurement and programme management effectiveness could be improved; let’s look at just three.

There were three objectives in the procuring the required Blackberry’s, etc.:

1.    Increase police officer visibility to the public;

2.    Reduce unnecessary bureaucracy; and

3.    Increase efficiency and effectiveness of the police service.

Had the objectives been uppermost in the minds of those leading the procurement there would have been a trail of evidence demonstrating the appraisal of alternative ways of achievement. The NAO couldn’t find that evidence.  Instead