Medical Equipment: Procurement
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of national purchasing of NHS England equipment.
Answered by Karin Smyth
NHS Supply Chain is responsible for procuring products, warehousing and delivering consumables and medical equipment on behalf of the National Health Service. It became fully operational in April 2019, under the ownership of my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care; since 2021, NHS Supply Chain has been owned by NHS England.
The merits of NHS Supply Chain are that it leverages the collective buying power of the NHS to drive savings and provide a standardised range of clinically assured quality products at the best value. NHS Supply Chain manages more than eight million orders per year across more than 129,000 order points and over 16,000 locations, delivering over 35 million lines of ordered goods to the NHS annually.
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