PROCUREMENT
The NHS often operates differently from other
parts of the public sector – ‘with unique nuances, challenges, and quirks’, the authors stress.
Chris Robinson
Chris Robinson, MCIPS Chartered, associate director at Turner & Townsend, has 25 years’ experience of delivering procurements across defence, local authorities, regional transport bodies, universities, and housing associations. Recently, he provided procurement advisory associated with ‘giga-package’ activity for the world’s largest building, situated in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (The Mukaab). Chris is the Turner
& Townsend UK Procurement Reform Taskforce Business lead, and has shaped both organisational Procurement Act upskilling and awareness, and the company’s external business proposition. During 2021 he co-
authored a published book covering public and private sector procurement as a discipline. With a real passion for learning and supporting the development of fellow procurement professionals, as an Accredited Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply lecturer, he has delivered the qualification to over 150 learners over the past 12 years.
The authors say: “The first six months of the Act have seen the both the NHS and the wider public sector sow the seeds of their formative procurement activity; soon enough we will start to see the green shoots appear.”
of the new Act. Not all NHS procurement is, however impacted by it. The procurement of certain healthcare services in England is undertaken under the Provider Selection Regime (PSR) that came into effect on 1 January 2024 (further detailed within the Health Care Services – Provider Selection Regime Regulations 2023). As a result, not all NHS procurement is incorporated within the narrative of the Act. While the PSR will remain applicable for the
procurement of healthcare services, the Act will apply to construction-related work outside the scope of the PSR, or where the services are procured by public sector organisations (that are not categorised as ‘relevant authorities’ under the PSR). The NHS recognises this, and it hasn’t stopped Trusts getting going and taking advantage of the new system, judging by the number of notices published since the launch of the Act that contain a ‘construction’ or ‘estate management’ prefix.
Meeting the challenge Of the areas of NHS procurement impacted by the new Act, some of the most major are the large estate transformation projects, and particularly some of the schemes part of the New Hospital Programme (NHP). The NHP initially proposed to deliver 48 new hospitals by 2030, and while the scope and context of the programme is under review, it still represents the largest hospital building initiative for a generation. From a procurement perspective, the launch of the Act provides the perfect backdrop against which to test out the objectives laid out within the regulations. There is no doubt that the procurement activity aligned to the NHP will include a mixture of framework approaches, the standardised designs in which to obtain efficiencies – from both a cost and timeline sense and, of course, in some instances, the need for lengthy supplier engagement (ideally, ahead of formal procurement), in which to better understand market capacity,
capabilities, and innovative offerings, which will result in high-quality outcomes for healthcare infrastructure. Outside of the ambitious
NHP, the NHS of course still has other scheduled construction and real estate procurement activity to
A view inside Oxford Critical Care at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.
30 Health Estate Journal September 2025
James Leask Frazer / MTX Contracts
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