Blog: NOE CPC are excited by the role we’re increasingly playing in the ICS landscape
Our focus for March is #ValuesMatter. To discuss this topic, Keith Rowley, Managing Director, talks about the values which are at the centre of everything we do at NOE CPC.
“As we head into the new financial year, we are reflecting on our values of Integrity, Caring and Simplicity, which will remain at the centre of everything we do in what is a constantly evolving procurement industry.
“Our values are based on our link to the NHS and we reflect them into what we do as a team in the service we deliver to our members and customers. We are part of the NHS family and ultimately anything we do ends up back in the NHS, either as a surplus that helps to fund our business model, or as a rebate to our wider membership.
“Last year, we delivered a surplus of £580k to our members, and this year we expect to increase that to more than £600k, despite us making further investments in additional resources over the last 12 months, for example, our two new Supplier Relationship Managers, who help to reinforce our value of integrity and support the wider supply chain. We will also shortly be appointing a Sustainability and Social Value Manager, aligning with our value of caring so we are at the forefront of those issues as a public service in the NHS and in helping our members.
“As we head into next year, we are really excited by the role we’re increasingly playing in the ICS landscape. We hope to be welcoming new members, all of whom will be entitled to the rebate model we operate, and that’s exciting because it’s increasing our membership within their respective ICSs. We are looking forward to working with them on a local and regional level as those ICSs start to form.
“We’ve also seen continued success in the NHS Workforce Alliance this year, where we are working with our colleagues in NHS Procurement in Partnership (NHS PiP) and Crown Commercial Services (CCS). We are working hard to drive improvements in the service that we’re offering in that area, recognising the challenges faced right across the NHS. We are also going to be doing more work over the coming year to look at how those activities better support our HR colleagues. It links to our values of integrity, simplicity and caring because we are all working together to ensure the NHS saves time and money, whilst helping it address its workforce challenges, and at the same time, we are avoiding any duplication in the work that we do.
“We are also looking to work more closely with our partners in NHS PiP. This means we are showing integrity by aligning to national strategies, but helping deliver locally, and it aligns with our value of simplicity because we are reducing duplication and generating efficiency by doing that work. Over time, the portfolio of frameworks on offer will be consolidated, making it simpler to choose the right solution. We will continue to work with national policymakers to ensure those frameworks align with national category strategies, providing simplicity in our commercial offering.
“We will also be able to better support our members through the rebate model, as it won’t matter which framework you use from across the NHS PiP portfolio, it will contribute and all of our members will benefit.
“This will allow us to better support our customers around the ICS agenda, because in line with our caring value, we are more engaged and embedded within ICS group meetings and structures to help them develop and deliver their non-clinical workplans.
“Where teams are massively stretched at the moment, dealing with all of the supply chain resilience issues, price inflation and local trust matters, as well as trying to collaborate, we can be a really valuable partner, adding supplementary capacity to help them deliver.”