Plenty to talk about in Manchester

When Healthcare Estates 2013 opens its doors to visitors in Manchester next month (the event is being held from 8-9 October at Manchester Central), the radical new procurement blueprint unveiled early last month by Health Minister, Dr Dan Poulter, for how the NHS buys and funds everything from rubber gloves and stitches, to building work and temporary staff, will be among the major talking points. The new ‘Procurement Development Programme for the NHS: Better Procurement, Better Value, Better Care’, published on 5 August (see also page 11), encourages NHS hospitals to radically change the way they buy supplies, goods, and services, as well as how they manage their estates, the goal being to ‘find’ over £1.5 billion in procurement efficiencies over the next three years.

Leveraging NHS buying power

Interestingly, one of the keynote speakers on Day One of this year’s conference, (see pages 88-89 for the full programme), is John Nangle, Crown Commercial Lead for Energy at the Cabinet office. He will be ‘outlining a vision’ of how the NHS might integrate the supply of gas and electricity sourced under a centralised supply framework, operated by the likes of the Government Procurement Service or TEC, with energy-saving solutions and programmes developed by organisations such as the Carbon and Energy Fund How estates and facilities teams UKwide can continue to find the savings required by the Government and the Exchequer, while also ensuring that hospitals, care homes, and other healthcare facilities, continue to have a ‘clean, safe, and suitable’ treatment environment, will indeed be a theme reflected in many of the presentations, seminars, workshops, and other events, being staged throughout the two-day show.