The rollout of value-based procurement (VBP) across the NHS in England has been welcomed as a significant step towards ensuring healthcare purchasing decisions are driven by patient outcomes rather than price alone.
VBP is an innovative procurement approach that focuses on how a product or solution can:
- best deliver improved outcomes
- reduce total costs of the patient pathway
- provide long-term benefits to all partners in the health system
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has worked in partnership with NHS England and NHS Supply Chain (NHSSC), to develop national VBP standard guidance. The guidance gives buyers a standard set of questions and scoring criteria to use when buying medical technology (medtech).
The new methodology, which has been more than three years in development, requires NHS organisations to place greater emphasis on wider measures of value, including patient outcomes, patient experience and environmental impact, when procuring medical technologies and devices.
Commenting on the guidance, Chris Whitehouse, Director of Health and MedTech Policy at Whitehouse Communications, which advises medical device suppliers, said: “For many years, procurement decisions across parts of the NHS have too often been driven primarily by upfront cost.
“Value-based procurement recognises that healthcare technologies should be judged on the outcomes they deliver for patients and the wider value they create across the health system. That is a positive and necessary change.”
While welcoming the reforms, the medtech expert emphasised that successful implementation would be essential if the NHS is to realise the full benefits of the new approach.
Whitehouse added: “Changing procurement frameworks on paper is relatively straightforward. Changing behaviours and cultures that have developed over many years is much harder. If organisations continue to prioritise upfront price above all else, the benefits of value-based procurement will never be fully realised.
“One of the most important factors in the success of this approach will be ensuring clinicians are involved much earlier in procurement decisions. They are the people who understand how technologies perform in real-world settings and how they affect patient care. Their expertise is essential if procurement decisions are to reflect what matters most to patients.
“Patient experience cannot simply be a box-ticking exercise. The products and technologies the NHS purchases have a direct impact on people's dignity, independence, quality of life and health outcomes. If the NHS is serious about delivering better outcomes, then the voices of clinicians and patients need to be much closer to procurement decisions.
“The direction of travel is absolutely the right one, but success will ultimately depend on whether the NHS can embed a genuine culture of value-based decision-making throughout the procurement process. That is where the real work begins.”
The rollout of value-based procurement forms part of wider efforts to improve efficiency across the NHS while supporting innovation and delivering better outcomes for patients.
