Lack of oversight of NHS Supply Chain shows there’s a desperate need for reform

This is highlighted by the MPs report into the NHS’s central purchasing body. The very fact that it has been left to “mark its own homework” as a result of weak oversight, according to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will make patients feel uneasy.

Especially when many patients are facing delays for operations or lining the corridors of A&E to be seen following an emergency.

The health service spends around £8bn every year buying items such as paper, gloves, prosthetic hips and other medical equipment. The NHS Supply Chain sources, buys and supplies medical equipment and consumables to hospital trusts.

But hospitals are still spending £3.4bn a year independently, outside of the collective purchasing route.

NHS Supply Chain has “failed to persuade trusts to use it, meaning trusts are missing out on opportunities for savings”, the PAC says.

For all the good that the NHS does, it is an organisation that suffers from a never ending labyrinth of red tape and bureaucracy.

At a time when the NHS is facing budgetary pressures like no other, a review is needed into how efficient parts of the health service are.

No one wants to see the quality of care suffer but governments can’t continue to service the NHS’s ever-growing costs without demanding absolute efficiency.

In January, the National Audit Office said that the NHS is “not using its spending power to the full” in its own analysis of NHS Supply Chain.

Given the scale of the NHS, it should be able to leverage its collective spending power to get value for money.