Sectors We Support – NHS

You achieve great patient outcomes. With our in-depth knowledge of the NHS, we can make sure your Complex Supplier Relationships across many service disciplines, help you to maintain maximum value from them. 

We know the Strategic Suppliers in the NHS marketplace, really well:

  • Their strengths. The key attributes of each Strategic Supplier and what internal client disciplines you will need to have in place so they can achieve your outcomes and objectives, quickly.

  • Their challengesComplex service delivery does not always go to plan. We can advise you on what diligence your team can put into place to assure these Strategic Suppliers deliver to your expectations.

  • Their contractual constraints. We know what most Strategic Suppliers will accept contractually, what they will not, and why. Our ‘Optimise’ process assures you can overcome these constraints and be fully contractually protected for fit for purpose services.

Your key expectation you should have from Strategic and Complex Supplier Relationships:

  • Optimum value in service and solutions deliveryThese specialist suppliers represent themselves as ‘experts’ in their disciplines. Recent case law determines you can often rely on the supplier’s represented expertise to drive maximum value for money in your service delivery, even if your contract terms are ambiguous in terms of their responsibilities.

Benefits of using BPG to facilitate your Strategic Supplier Relationships

  • We know what practices work really well. Having optimised over 500 complex supplier relationships, we have deep expertise of trust building in relationships. We also have proven template documentation, including procurement structures, service requirements, agile fit for purpose contracts, implementation and operating governance, along with expertise in what actions you need to avoid to make sure your strategic supplier relationships achieve your outcomes, quickly.

Key Considerations when NHS Organisations enter into Complex Supplier Relationships

How the BPG 'Optimise' Process delivers great Strategic Supplier Relationships

The BPG ‘Optimise’ Method is evidenced from over 500 complex supplier relationships. It shows there are 8 characteristics present in every successful complex relationship. We can help you successfully implement these quickly to improve service innovation, supplier relationships and drive down BAU costs.

Click here to see how the ‘Optimise’ process can help you drive maximum value in your strategic supplier relationships.

Some of the Strategic Suppliers we have detailed knowledge of

  • 4 Ways Healthcare Ltd
  • Accenture
  • Agfa HealthCare UK
  • Alliance Medical Ltd
  • Allscripts
  • Asteral
  • Asteral Ltd
  • Bard Ltd
  • Bayer Plc
  • Bender UK
  • Bracco UK Ltd
  • Brainlab
  • BridgeHead Software Ltd
  • Canon Medical Systems
  • Carestream Health UK Ltd
  • Cerner
  • Cievert
  • CliniSys Solutions
  • Cobalt Health
  • De Smit Medical Systems Ltd
  • Dell
  • Diagnostic Imaging Ltd
  • DXC Technology
  • E Health Innovations
  • Elekta Ltd
  • EMIS Health
  • Esaote UK
  • EuroKing Maternity Software Solutions
  • Everlight Radiology
  • Forcare B.V.
  • Fujifilm UK Ltd
  • GE Medical Systems Ltd
  • Guerbet Laboratories Ltd
  • HD Clinical
  • Healthcare Software Systems Ltd
  • HealthNetConnections
  • Hitachi Medical Systems UK Ltd
  • Hyland Software UK
  • Icom
  • iKnowHow SA
  • Imaging First
  • IMS Maxims
  • Infinitt UK Ltd
  • Inhealth
  • Insignia Medical Systems
  • Intelerad Medical Systems
  • Intuitive Systems and Networks
  • Kanteron Systems UK
  • Lexmark Enterprise Software UK
  • Link Medical Ltd
  • Mach7 Technologies
  • Mallinckrodt UK Commercial Ltd
  • McKesson Technologies UK Ltd
  • Med Imaging Ltd
  • Medecon Healthcare LTS (previously Apple Technologies)
  • Medical Imaging Systems
  • MediMatic Srl
  • Meditech
  • Medrad UK
  • Merge Healthcare
  • Mirada Medical
  • Nervecentre Software
  • OpenText
  • PACSHealth
  • Parity Medical
  • Philips Healthcare
  • Phoenix Dosimetry Ltd
  • PLH Medical Ltd
  • Purcell Radio Systems
  • Qinec
  • RaySearch Laboratories
  • Sectra Ltd
  • Siemens Healthcare
  • Soliton IT
  • Spacelabs Healthcare
  • Sunquest Information Systems
  • SynApps Solutions
  • System C Healthcare
  • TeraRecon GMBH
  • TPP
  • Ultralinq Healthcare Solutions Ltd
  • Varian Medical Systems UK Ltd
  • Verathon Medival UK Ltd
  • Visbion Ltd
  • Vital Images
  • Wolverson X-Ray Ltd
  • Xograph Healthcare Ltd

The Behaviours you should expect from a 'Good' Strategic Supplier Relationship

  • Objectives being met
  • Critical friend supplier
  • Inherent commercial trust
  • Sustained collaboration and innovation
  • Reduced service cost
  • High reputation with your peers
  • Internal team aligned
  • Services always aligned to outcomes
  • Flexible/agile contract structure
  • Evidenced based results

Typical Complex Supplier Relationship hurdles faced in NHS Organisations

We’ve dealt with optimising over 500 complex supplier relationships. More than 50% of complex supplier relationships experience misunderstandings between client and supplier over your requirements and expectations.

If the right foundations are not in place to drive maximum value, you may experience:

  • Additional charges and costs for ‘misunderstood expectations’
  • A lack of understanding of contractual roles and responsibilities
  • Governance and performance escalation not clearly delineated
  • Senior client executives not being clear on their expectations and dynamics of the relationship
  • Not enough investment by senior executives in the resourcing or skills of the client supplier management team
  • Loss of key in-house expertise to the supplier (inadvertent staff poaching)
  • Employee resistance to new working methods from the supplier
  • Clashes of culture between client and supplier staff and so forth.

Operational challenges faced by NHS Organisations

The NHS is currently facing the biggest financial challenge in its existence. It’s all credit to the commitment of the individuals on the ground that most areas of the NHS service are running well. However, we are constantly seeing signs of the crisis the system is under as a result of government financial constraints, in areas such as hospital care, A&E and GP services. There are many reasons for the service being under such a strain, but the key elements are:

  • Lifestyle factors (alcohol, smoking, poor diet and so forth)
  • The change in public expectations (from advice on healthcare management through to mental health and social care, contraception, antenatal and maternity services, vaccination programmes and the fast, efficient processing of our medication and appointments)
  • An ageing population
  • Accident and Emergency departments
  • Rising costs.

As a result, more specific technology related benefits can support these key elements:

  • Precision Medicine. Genomics and precision medicine can target treatment interventions at specific sub-groups of patients, potentially making them more effective and opening up new therapeutic possibilities.
  • Remote Care. It improves access to health care services, enabling patient needs to be addressed as early as possible and potentially making systems more efficient.
  • Technology-supported self-management. It helps to empower patients to better manage and understand their data can provide new ways for the NHS to learn, improve and generate new research – alongside artificial intelligence (AI), which is providing new analytical capacity for diagnosing patients, effective triage and logistics.

Advances in Medicine and Technology

If there is an upside to the austerity measures being imposed by government, it seems to be the huge advancements in medicine and surgery, alongside IT and technological innovations that are being made. This means that there is a wealth of ideas and efficiencies that are being experimented and piloted to help support even better patient care at lower costs. In turn, the successful elements of this will help to assure good models of excellent working practices continue and improve.

What stage are you at in your Strategic Supplier Relationship?

New NHS Project

You’re procuring or contracting and you need it to work really well.

Existing Relationship

You’re in a partnership that could be working better.

Broken Relationship

It’s gone wrong. You need help to exit a relationship early and safely transition to another.