Price comparison atlas overlooks the real issues

It a bid to stop hospitals paying different prices for the same products and improve transparency, the Government released its first efficiency league table in July – the NHS Procurement Atlas of Variation.¹ It compares the prices of more than 100 common healthcare products, and 244 hospitals are ranked on spending; praising the best and chastising the worst. Its purpose is to help hospitals compare prices and identify where costs should be reduced in an attempt to reallocate savings into frontline care. But what does it deliver in the way of help or support? 

While there is an undisputed need to help NHS procurement get into better shape, and this latest move is a step forward, it is also disappointingly flawed. There is a real need to break away from yet another siloed approach, and instead ensure such developments are all encompassing. The Atlas of Variation has only limited relevance to much wider issues in NHS procurement.

Although media headlines grabbed readers with news of ‘NHS wasting millions on supplies’, ‘profligate waste,’ and other equally scornful statements, unfortunately it is not as far-reaching as it should be. Those at the heart of procurement in the NHS know this only too well. It is not as simple as celebrating the best NHS buyers and shaming the worst offenders, as Health Minister Dr Daniel Poulter stated. There needs to be recognition that NHS procurement is currently in the state it is in due to the restrictions on how it can purchase – a silo approach, and a real lack of systems that provide good data and visibility across the NHS. Despite these limitations, the majority of procurement staff in the UK seek to get the best deal they can, given their individual circumstances.