Heartbeat: Shaping the future of NHS procurement

January 15, 2020

Clinical colleagues have once again stepped forward to share their expert knowledge on a national stage helping to shape the future of clinical NHS procurement.

Recently, when NHS Supply Chain was tasked with developing their new framework for non-invasive sleep therapy they turned to non-other than colleagues in our respiratory physiology team at Sandwell and City Hospitals to help shape their specifications for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure devices.

Sharing the news with Heartbeat, Head of Clinical Product Management at the Black Country Alliance (BCA) Elena Slater said: “I am so proud of the clinicians we have at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, this is only one example of many where our clinicians are helping to shape the future of NHS procurement and protect our patients by ensuring the national clinical specifications for the procurement of CPAP devices (in this example) are clinically acceptable and we not only that we get value for money on a national scale but also ensuring that patient care remains as the number one priority.

“Mike Lang, Head of Respiratory Physiology and Amina Mohammed, Deputy Head of Respiratory Physiology, have been very helpful by facilitating visits from Walsall sleep service to show them how we can improve patient care, not only at our organisation, but across the Black Country Alliance by using remote monitoring of patients and adopting innovations in practice. A fine example of how our clinical engagement programme is showing not only savings but clinical benefits across the BCA and nationally.

Sharing best practice is the key and our clinicians at SWB are at the forefront of this nationally inputting on national specifications for many other clinical areas.”