Digital Matters: Tools to benefit our customers
The pandemic has impacted how we work in our day to day lives. As more organisations switch to a hybrid working model, technology has never played a more important role in the way we conduct business. Technology is integral to our operations and ensuring we utilise platforms and channels is key to supporting our partners and customers across the public procurement system.
When COVID-19 hit and our organisation was forced to change our working practices, NOE CPC was able to rapidly adapt platforms we already had established in our day to day work, such as Microsoft Teams. This meant we were able to continue to support our customers and external stakeholders, as well as working effectively as a team.
Ian Andrews, Technical Services Director at NOE CPC said: “The past two years have been an incredibly challenging period for the NHS. From the perspective of NOE CPC, embracing technological solutions has been crucial to ensure we continued to provide support services to the health service.
“Our vision is to deliver high quality and easily accessible procurement services to the NHS. Increasingly this means providing access to our services online, using web-based systems and the provision of self-service tools.”
We have invested more resources into developing our in-house digital toolkit and online system to improve accessibility for our customers. Our file sharing area of the website enables you to access framework documentation quickly and easily, allowing for a faster turnaround on gathering the information needed to decide if the framework is suitable for your needs. NOE CPC launched our benchmarking tool which identifies instant savings across multiple frameworks through an easy to use interface. We also launched our Quick Quote Tool for the IT Hardware (LINK3) framework which has proved to be a valuable asset for our customers. The easy-to-use tool enables you to send details of your specific requirements to all awarded suppliers in the relevant lots so they can contact you directly with a quote to meet your specifications. Our Minor Works Trades and Associated Services DPS has a built-in online provider search tool, helping you identify the suppliers who can meet your needs. Our technical services team is also developing a Request for Quote (RFQ) tool system for NHS Supply Chain: Hotel Services.
NOE CPC has also adopted the Atamis Health Family e-Procurement system in line with the recommendations made by the Department of Health and Social Care. This is a single e-commercial system, bringing the commercial activities of the health service together in one place, including business case generation and sign off, tendering, evaluation, digital contract awards and performance management, supplier management, and P2P interface. NOE CPC hosts an Atamis Health Family Forum at which, moving forward, we hope to hold best-practice discussions, system functionality demonstrations and Q&A around using the system.
We are also helping the newly-established ICSs with tools to analyse their spend and opportunities. By working with ICS leads across the region, we aggregate and normalise spend, identify opportunities against contracts and provide ICS colleagues with extensive digital analysis and information tools to allow them to explore their own spend data in the context of frameworks and contracts available to them.
The digital health landscape is ever-changing and we are striving to be early adopters of new technological solutions to help us continuously improve our offering. We understand how best to meet the needs of our members and customers and will continue to provide the best tools to deliver that.