NHS should prove worth of expensive equipment

Equipment bought in recent years includes: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT) scanners - used mainly for diagnosis, and Linear Accelerator (Linac) machines for cancer treatment.

The current value of these three types of machines in the NHS is around £1 billion.

Patient demand for services from these machines has increased significantly in the last decade and continues to grow.

Since 2007, the Department of Health has devolved responsibility for procuring and managing these machines to individual trusts but this structure is not conducive to delivering value for money.

The Committee is concerned that the NHS is failing to optimise its purchasing power, crucial at this time when significant savings are required.

The NHS needs to make high quality, comparable data available on the equipment.

The procurement and management of high value equipment is fragmented and uncoordinated, leading to wasted resources and variable standards of services.

Trusts have three main ways to purchase high value equipment:

1. by dealing directly with suppliers,
2. through framework agreements, managed by NHS Supply Chain; or
3. by joining up with other trusts in collaborative purchasing arrangements.

The Committee believes there is a lost opportunity to use collective buying power to get lower prices and the Committee expects NHS Supply Chain and other collaborative procurement bodies to work with trusts to share plans on future needs and get better prices and value for money by exploiting the joint buying power.

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