10 November 2011 | Paul Snell

BBC Radio 4

Tuesday 27 September, 8pm

★★

Doing justice to the complex background of NHS procurement is difficult. This report did its best to present an overview of the issues, but could not diagnose what ails it.

Prompted by recent audit reports into hospital purchasing, the show wanted to know why the NHS was “throwing money away”.

Purchasers, clinicians, NHS Supply Chain, collaborative hubs and suppliers were all criticised, but there was little agreement on the source of the problem.

A perfect example of this muddled world was the interview with a supplier who employs 20 salespeople to talk directly to clinicians. He claimed his firm wasn’t undermining collaboration by bypassing procurement hubs, but instead claimed hubs were preventing his firm’s direct collaboration with clinicians.

Simon Burns, the health minister with responsibility for procurement, admitted the system was “absolutely crazy”, but added he didn’t “recognise a wholescale, across-the-board problem”.

“Individual trusts do not have the information to know what good looks like in terms of purchasing,” said the NAO’s Mark Davies. After this show, 
I too was none the wiser.