HFMA 2017: More trusts need to realise potential of PPIB

NHS Improvement launched the purchase price index and benchmarking tool (PPIB) to increase transparency on prices charged to trusts. It uses purchase order data submitted by trusts and enables providers to see prices paid for the same product by different providers.

According to Mark Gorman, principal analyst for the model hospital covering corporate services and procurement at NHS Improvement, the data from the PPIB and the model hospital revealed huge variations in price, process and performance across NHS providers in England.

‘You type in any product and it shows you what every trust has paid for what quantities,’ he told a workshop on the opening day of the HFMA annual conference in London. ‘You can see who is getting a good deal and identify the trust with the best price.’ NHS Improvement has part funded licences covering trusts’ initial access to the third party-run service.

The tool also identifies the opportunity for savings if a trust bought goods at the median price or the minimum price paid by other providers.

Jim Forsyth (pictured), head of procurement at Buckinghamshire Health Care NHS Trust, told the same workshop that lots of trusts were using the system and the information very well. ‘But some aren’t logging in at all and there are 50-60 with very low usage,’ he said. He accepted that some data was imperfect but that it was getting better with feedback and was good enough to help trusts understand opportunities for significant savings.

He said sometimes pointing out the variation to a supplier was enough to get a price drop – his trust’s biggest reduction for a single item was 60%. And the system was also helpful when securing quotes for new products or when taking decisions about suppliers’ requests for price rises.

NHS Improvement said finance directors needed to challenge heads of procurement to ensure they were using the available data to challenge or verify existing prices.

Future developments could see the PPIB tool also enable trusts to examine the savings potential of using comparable products in addition to securing better prices for the same goods.