NHS North West Collaborative Procurement Hub

Established in 2006, NWCCA has grown to be one of the largest NHS collaborative procurement hubs (now a Commercial Authority), contracting for circa £2bn of spend P.A. on behalf of 50 Trusts.  Recognising that the benefits from simple aggregation would diminish in the short-medium term the Authority embarked on a transformation programme to introduce a strategic sourcing process and up-skill the Authority and Trust based procurement staff.  ADR was selected to design and support implementation of the programme.

The aims of the project:

• Sanity check the logic and redesign as required the previous sourcing process and thereafter develop toolkit / guides / checklists to support application.
• Quickly introduce the sourcing process to Authority and Trust based staff (40+ buyers).
• Train staff in the context of the sourcing process i.e. make it relevant to the desired way of working, ensuring discipline for completion of process steps & gateways, and that contract compliance is pivotal to the development of sourcing strategy.

The Project:

• Sourcing process redesign and development of the supporting toolkit  guides.
• Conduct a skills profile for all procurement staff to identify competency gaps and development needs using ADR’s DNA diagnostic tool, which has been designed to reflect the Authorities competency framework
• Design learning programmes to address the skills gaps – Essentials, Intermediate and Advanced levels – reflecting the spectrum of needs across the procurement population.
• An action planning (output orientated) theme has been introduced into the workshops to drive application of the tools & techniques introduced, with a follow-up review 6 weeks post workshop to evaluate and share the participants’ experiences and learning outcomes.
• Train the managers in ‘managing in a category management environment’ – as a means of embedding it as a standard way of working. DNA identified gaps against target competency and individual development needs profiles have been produced.  This has informed the workshop content and the programmes have been rolled out in the Authority and in key Trusts.
• The post-event follow-up has been conducted and learning captured together with good practice examples deposited on the Hub’s intranet.
• ADR’s competency diagnostic tool, DNA, has also been used as a key tool to inform recruitment with candidates being required to complete a self-assessment before interview.  The results are then used to sift candidates and to inform the interview structure and selection decisions

The Results:

DNA identified gaps against target competency and individual development needs profiles have been produced.  This has informed the workshop content and the programmes have been rolled out in the Authority and in key Trusts.

The post-event follow-up has been conducted and learning captured together with good practice examples deposited on the Hub’s intranet. ADR’s competency diagnostic tool, DNA, has also been used as a key tool to inform recruitment with candidates being required to complete a self-assessment before interview.  The results are then used to sift candidates and to inform the interview structure and selection decisions