Pasa: Regulations and audits important in NHS
Wednesday 11th November 2009
In order to ensure that the NHS in England and Wales makes the most of its resources, it needs to achieve the best possible value for money when purchasing goods and services. For this reason, regulations and audits are important.
This is according to the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (Pasa), which is an executive agency of the Department of Health and serves to release money that could be better spent to improve patient care by achieving savings in relation to the supply of goods and services across the health service.
The agency claims to have saved the NHS more than £1 billion in this way over the last five years, which it says can go towards enhancing the services received by users of the NHS. Figures cited by the organisation reveal that the health service in England spends around £11 billion each year on goods and services, making controlling its expenditure highly important.
Established in April 2000, Pasa is centrally funded by the government, which it says means it can concentrate on the functions that demonstrate value to the health service. As well as supporting the national priorities of the NHS, the agency provides strategic guidance on procurement and gives practical guidance and education and training to those involved in buying for the NHS. It also promotes sustainable development.
In addition, it encourages creativity from suppliers and encourages small and medium-sized enterprises to do business with the health service.
Guidelines produced by the organisation have been designed to fit in with modernisation plans it outlined in 2002. That year, it put forward a programme designed to modernise and reform the organisation of supply management. Under the terms of the best practice framework it devised, all health trusts and strategic health authorities were given a key role in translating policy into reality.
In a report produced at the time, the Pasa said: "In the procurement function itself, it is clear that, while good progress has been made in some areas, there is a long way to go to ensure that quality performance in all aspects of supply management is the norm across the NHS."
The framework developed by the agency was intended to enable health organisations to establish where they needed to be in terms of procurement and to identify their areas of strength and weakness. In addition it is said to provide a professional challenge and serves as a source of information and guidance for people operating in the industry. Pasa also hopes it supports the development of recognised centres of excellence and facilitates the process of sharing good practice.
On this issue, it remarked: "Sharing best practice is a major challenge and priority for the NHS as a whole and procurement is no exception - together we need to identify, develop, share and adopt best practice."
It added: "The important issue is that we share the good things that are happening now and ... build on these in developing future best practice for the NHS as a whole."
The guidelines set out are not intended to be prescriptive, but rather recognise that organisations applying them should have flexibility to demonstrate a number of ways in which they achieve benefits from professional procurement.
As well as being utilised by Pasa, the framework is intended for a range of industry groups. The agency stated: "It is for use by all organisations working in healthcare purchasing - by Pasa, NHS trusts and collaborative procurement organisations. It should be equally applied to all areas of purchasing and supply activity - [including] supplies, pharmacy, estates and so on."
One of the reasons that Pasa audits are considered important is because they serve to help protect the safety of patients. For example, there are screening requirements for agency workers supplied under the Pasa framework agreements from April 2008 onwards.
Commenting on its work in this area, the body said: "The audit team's fundamental objectives are to ensure that all workers supplied to the NHS are of high quality and do not present a risk to patient safety."
Among the areas audited by the Pasa for this purpose is that of recruitment procedures. Also, training, criminal records disclosures, fitness to work and immigration procedures are monitored, along with professional training.
In a recent development, Pasa has begun providing templates and tools to NHS trusts and collaborative procurement hubs to help them integrate sustainability within their contracting and decision making. For example, organisations are able to access training materials for sustainable procurement. Also, a sustainable procurement risk and opportunity user tool has been produced which can be used at the beginning of any contract or tender process to identify potential risks or opportunities that they contain.
Meanwhile, Pasa is in the process of creating a tool which will enable organisations to ensure that ethical trade and labour standards are addressed within relevant contracts.
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