Necessity - not nicety - A new commercial operating model for the NHS and Department of Health - 7 May 09 (posted 12/5)

Source
The new Commercial Operating Model will further enhance commercial and procurement skills across the NHS in helping to deliver high quality and personalised care for patients.

Introduction
Over the coming years, the NHS faces the challenge of continuing to improve the quality, accessibility and range of services for patients while driving efficiency hard and securing better value for money for the taxpayer. Reforms over the past decade – plurality in provision, improved commissioning, greater choice, more information for patients and contestability – provide a powerful set of levers and a tremendous opportunity to meet this challenge.

Over the last eight months, we have worked closely with a wide range of partners – including NHS providers, commissioners, the independent sector, suppliers of health goods and services, procurement experts, the Treasury, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and staff in the Department of Health (DH) – to identify how improved commercial capability can help meet our shared aspirations for the NHS in England. The strong consensus has been that the NHS and DH need commercial skills as never before. There is also agreement that existing arrangements and status quo will not deliver the step-improvement in capability now required for the challenging times ahead.

This document sets out why commercial skills are now integral to the NHS at all levels. It describes a new operating model for commercial capability – the way commercial skills will be organised and applied at different levels across the NHS to have maximum impact – drawing heavily on the discussions of the past months. It outlines the benefits for key groups in the NHS and DH and it sets out how we are committed to working with a range of delivery partners to bring the new operating model into being quickly – and in doing so make a timely and telling response to the ambitious efficiency challenge laid down in the 2009 Budget.

Full copy attached...

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