Procurement & Distribution Interest Group Symposium

10th June 2010

Beth Loudon – Business Development Manager

What is the NHS Commercial Medicines Unit? What is our role and governance? What is a Commercial Support Unit (CSU) and

what is its potential role in medicines management?

How is the procurement landscape developing for medicines management?

NHS CMU – Who?

A team within PICD (Procurement, Investment and Commercial Division) at Department of Health from 1st January 2010.Previously Pharmacy Directorate of NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency, roles and responsibilities remain unchanged.Teams in Reading and Runcorn and 11 Homeworkers

Core purpose is to:deliver efficiencies for the NHS and DH in the procurement of medicines support purchasing for safety of those medicinesensure an efficient and effective supply chain of medicines to the patient.

NHS CMU Governance

Efficiency

We deliver efficiencies through:the delivery of national and regional contracts for medicines for secondary care in the NHSthe delivery of best value on all DH central procurement of medicines, including vaccines and flu pandemic productsthe use of our unique national spend and usage data collection system, to provide information and analysis to identify efficiency opportunities available to the NHS and DH, and to support them in measuring and reporting on those efficienciesthe offer of supply chain efficiency opportunities to the NHS e.g. improvements in purchase-to-pay systems

SafetyWe support purchasing for safety of those medicines through:a bespoke quality control system (PharmaQC) which provides a route from supplier to pharmacist for product safety and quality informationworking closely with the national QC group to ensure all contracted products have been QC approvedensuring safety considerations are a core criteria in the design and award of our contractsclose relationships with the National Patient Safety Agency to ensure that we are supporting the DH in the implementation of policythe use of our professional networks and communication routes to ensure that secondary care pharmacists are instantly aware of any safety alerts

Supply chain

We ensure an efficient and effective supply chain of medicines to the patient through:arranging the storage and distribution for centrally procured medicinesanalysing the national usage data to forecast and plan for shortages in partnership with the Medicines and Pharmaceuticals Industry Group (MPIG)the use of our relationships with industry to influence the supply chain of medicines and their raw materials, to ensure that we can scenario plan for shortages and put contingencies in place

What are Commercial Support Units (CSU)? Set up in each region and began operating from

April 2010 Aim is to build commercial skills within the NHS

by improving commercial acumen and enabling the NHS to drive up quality and facilitate efficient use of resources

They will work with established local structures to determine the best collaborative approach to meet the commercial requirement.

What will a CSU do?

The CSU National Pharmacy Workstream

To address the following key questions:-What are the gaps in the provision of support for achieving optimal commercial effectiveness in the use of pharmaceuticals?-How could a CSU deliver services to fill these gaps?

Work has been undertaken in 4 regions (London, South Central, West Midlands and North West) to support SHA and CSU leads in developing greater insight and guidance on the role of CSUs in enabling commercially effective use of pharmaceuticals.

Key stakeholders were identified in each region and 1-2-1 interviews were carried out with a workshop to follow up.

Output is in final draft under consultation

Emerging themes….

Draft Medicines Management Functions….

Functions Associated services

Core Business Intelligence and Modelling

Prescribing and spend analysis (including opportunity identification)

Benchmarking

Scenario modelling

Facilitation of Collaborative Working

Opportunity identification

Project management support for collaboration

Implementation support for national strategies

Baseline analysis

Resource modelling

Audit support

Adoption of Best Practice and Innovation

Identification of best / innovative practice

Benefits tracking for best / innovative practice

Facilitation of sharing materials associated with best practice

Non- Core

Operational performance Clinical productivity and efficiency assessments

Medicines management capability assessments

Systems E-enablement opportunity identification

E-enablement implementation support

Market Management Contract management support

Homecare provider management

How is the procurement landscape changing? Increased emphasis on commercial rather

than procurement tasks and activities Skills required beyond traditional

procurement Increasing efficiency targets leading to… Increased pressure on the procurement

function More appetite for radical solutions