Procurement
Procurement: how can the NHS do better?
Amelia Deacon offers an insight into how the NHS can drive improvement by adopting Value-Based Healthcare and Procurement. In this article, she shares a checklist that could help ensure Trusts deliver the outcomes that matter most to patients and staff.
Innovation is frequently cited as the solution to the NHS’s most pressing challenges: constrained resources, rising demand, workforce pressures, and the imperative to reduce waste, all while improving patient care.1,2
Yet when we speak
about innovation in healthcare, the conversation typically centres on new devices, technologies, or treatments. What receives far less attention is innovation in how we procure. This is important because procurement
touches every aspect of healthcare. The choices made in MedTech procurement directly influence clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and financial sustainability. At the end of every procurement decision is a patient – someone whose quality and experience of care, and ultimately outcome, depend on these choices. Historically, procurement practices centred
on technical specifications and price have stifled innovation and limited patient access to high-quality care.3
To address this, Value-Based
Procurement (VBP), a key component of the NHS 10-Year Health Plan, seeks to drive innovation, improve productivity and ensure long-term financial sustainability.4
Rather than focusing on
lowest price, VBP evaluates a solution’s overall value across the entire patient pathway.5
The direction in the UK is clear. The Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) national VBP methodology operationalises this ambition, placing 60% weighting on value domains: social value, efficiency, patient and staff experience, purpose, and supply chain resilience, with 40% on cost.5
Yet despite policy
momentum and growing interest, its adoption across the NHS remains limited.6 This article examines some of the key barriers hindering VBP adoption and proposes practical steps the NHS can take, in partnership with industry, to build momentum and deliver the outcomes that matter to patients, staff, and healthcare systems.
What is Value-Based Procurement? VBP represents a fundamental shift in how healthcare organisations approach purchasing decisions. While definitions vary,7–10
they share
a common principle: moving beyond unit price to assess how a product or solution can deliver improved outcomes, reduce total costs across the patient pathway, and provide long-term, system-wide benefits. The DHSC defines VBP as a procurement model that embodies precisely
this shift.7 This holistic perspective means that
factors such as length of stay, readmission rates, procedure times, and environmental impact are now considered as equally important as purchase price. The DHSC’s VBP methodology identifies five domains through which value can be created and measured.5,11 l Social Value: Tackling health inequalities and supporting sustainability.
l Efficiency: Driving productivity across patient pathways.
l Patient and Staff: Improving outcomes, safety, and wellbeing.
l Supply Chain: Building resilience and ethical procurement practices.
l Purpose: Aligning procurement with strategic objectives.
In addition to these value domains, the methodology deliberately moves beyond the traditional emphasis on upfront purchase price. Whole-life cost, representing 40% of the evaluation weighting, broadens the lens to include purchase cost, implementation and operating costs, post-warranty servicing requirements, and eventual disposal costs, providing a far more realistic understanding of a product’s true lifetime value. Crucially, VBP is underpinned by two core
principles; value must be both tangible and measurable.10
This is not about vague promises
of improvement, but about evidenced outcomes that can be tracked and reported.11
This rigour
is essential – without it, VBP risks becoming a superficial rebrand of traditional procurement, adding complexity without delivering meaningful change.9
Why VBP matters for the NHS now The NHS faces a convergence of pressures. Rising demand, workforce shortages (illustrated by over 125,000 vacancies as of June 202514
), and
acute financial instability are compounded by inflation and supply chain disruptions.12–16 Darzi’s independent investigation concluded
Lord June 2026 I
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