NOE CPC is adopting the Atamis Health Family e-Procurement system in line with the recommendations made by the Department of Health and Social Care. If you are a procurement professional working in the NHS you may have heard of Atamis. But what does it do and what advantages can it offer over other eSourcing systems? 

What is Atamis? 

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has tendered for and procured a single e-commercial system to enable NHS organisations to replace the large variation in sourcing and contract management systems across the health family with one platform. 

It brings 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. It’s currently being used by DHSC, NHS England and Improvement, the PPE cell, NHS Digital, and an increasing number of arms-length bodies and NHS Trusts.

Why is it important? 

One of our greatest tools is to use data and technology better to increase the effectiveness and resilience of NHS procurement, especially given the collaborative strategy behind the ICS agenda. 

Fragmentation across the NHS, especially in the use of systems and information sharing, has presented a real challenge to patient care over the last year. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only shown the importance of keeping continuity of high quality and safe supplies but also the need for the procurement profession to improve the insight it has into the available data to inform better decisions.

What are the advantages of using Atamis over my current system? 

A sophisticated single e-commercial system like Atamis, used across the board, gives the ability to take a standardised approach and manage market risk and opportunities at an ICS, regional and national level.  

Trusts and ICSs can benefit from a rich supplier database facilitating flexible collaboration and the ability to proactively manage contracts when our suppliers find themselves in difficulty. Information remains private to the organisation but can be made visible and shared if needed, meaning organisations can collaborate more easily on commercial projects. 

It’s good for suppliers too. They can view and respond to business opportunities across the health sector via a single log in, with duplication of effort vastly reduced.

NOE CPC Member Support for Adoption of the Atamis Health Family System 

As part of the national rollout of the system, procurement hubs such as NOE CPC are acting as first point of contact and facilitators for trusts or ICS-level organisations who wish to know more about the system.

NOE CPC can assist adopting organisations in a number of ways:  

• Providing initial systems demonstrations and walk-throughs of the functionality of each of the various modules
• Talking through the lessons-learned from our own implementation and key areas to pay attention to 
• Facilitating contact with Atamis, the MOU, and getting a trust a place in an onboarding wave
• Providing a high-level guide for the data that needs to be gathered from existing systems to facilitate migration to Atamis 
• Advice and support on setting up specific customised procurement process templates for your organisation
• Support and advice around user administration for your organisation – training for your superusers and trainers
• Hosting and chairing regional or pan-regional Atamis user groups for sharing learning and best practice 
• Advice and guidance on how to approach the Atamis Change Request process and how to leverage requests across multiple users
• NOE CPC is happy to have a bespoke conversation around implementation support beyond these options to ensure you have the best access to the system.

For more information on Atamis rollout and adoption, please click on the Future NHS portal.

To view our e-tendering opportunities please click here.