Elcom’s platform has been selected by Humber & North Yorkshire Procurement Collaborative to help streamline procurement operations and support significant savings across three NHS trusts.

The collaborative provides procurement and supply chain services to Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust and York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Following the introduction of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) in July 2022, the three trusts consolidated procurement into a single operation aligned to the wider Humber and North Yorkshire system.

By adopting Elcom’s spend management platform, the collaborative is aiming to deliver procurement savings of more than £15 million per year within five years. The wider operation is responsible for around £538 million of annual non-pay spend, so the move is intended to support both efficiency and stronger regional buying power.

The platform will support sourcing, integrated procurement, inventory management, shared product catalogues and electronic invoicing, helping teams work more consistently across the three organisations. With around 266,000 invoices currently being processed each year, the collaborative is looking to reduce duplication, improve visibility and make ordering and invoicing more efficient.

As Edd James, Director of Procurement at the collaborative, explained, the aim was to improve the “digitisation journey in procurement”, put a single system in place across the three teams and connect into three e-finance systems. He also said better systems would “improve the ordering process”, avoid duplication and reduce ordering and invoicing requirements.

The collaborative also expects the new system to support more standardised governance and closer coordination across the trusts. James said it was important to get teams “working together as one”, so procurement activity can be coordinated more effectively and supplier negotiations strengthened through greater purchasing power.

From Elcom’s perspective, the programme reflects the broader opportunity created by the ICS model. Ian Slaughter, VP of Product at Elcom, said it gives health trusts the chance to bring procurement and supply chain functions together to drive efficiency. He added that Elcom’s work with the collaborative would further demonstrate how sourcing, procurement and inventory software can help NHS trusts save time and money, allowing more resource to be directed towards patient care.

For more information, contact info@elcom.com