Welsh Health Supplies Saves £600,000 In Its First eAuction

Posted on Oct 12, 2003

The first e-auction for medical supplies has saved the Welsh National Health Service more than £600,000 over the next three years.

In partnership with UKprocure Systems, Welsh Health Supplies (WHS), which negotiates contracts for the NHS in Wales, discovered an innovative way to save costs without compromising on quality.

Using an online auction, WHS wanted to generate competition for its contract for the supply of blood-collection bottles.

The director of Welsh Health Supplies, Mark Roscrow, says that while they were determined to ensure that quality remained the most important consideration, they were able to undertake the auction knowing that quality was assured.
He says: “We were very keen to prove that the concept of an auction works and to have the experience of trying it out.”

Even though there were only two main competitors, it was a very competitive market, with the existing supplier keen to keep the contract and the company which dominates the market, keen to win back the business. This meant the key issue was price.

Mark Roscrow said: “Our research in the market suggested that we might expect a possible reduction of a few percent given the highly competitive nature of the market. But in the event, the price came in 10% lower than we anticipated.”

UKprocure Systems is the leading independent provider of e-procurement solutions to the public sector, offering a fully managed online auctioning event, including consultancy, support and hardware, run on Oracle technology.

According to Mark Roscrow, WHS looked at a number of companies before choosing UKprocure Systems for its approach and its project management skills.
“We wanted someone to project manage the auction and UKprocure Systems excelled in that regard,” he says.

ends

About UK Procure

UKprocure Systems (www.ukprocure.com) is the leading supplier of end-to-end procurement solutions to the UK public sector, with an emphasis on healthcare, local government and education. UKprocure Systems provides managed services and hosted solutions that support the full procurement process, from sourcing and managing to ordering and invoicing. Its industry-leading eSourcing and eMarketplace solutions, which are based on the robust Oracle platform, are reinforced by UKprocure Systems consultancy services and unrivalled knowledge of the public sector supplier base and business processes. UKprocure Systems enables its customers to achieve dramatic cost savings through the transformation of the procurement process, savings that can be re-deployed to improve front line service delivery. At the same time, UKprocure Systems innovative solutions help public sector organisations meet Government targets for Modernisation, Best Value and Collaboration.

For more information please contact:
Tara Williams
UKprocure Systems
T: 020 7936 9489
M: 07976 906673
E: tara.williams@ukprocure.com

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