Large Teaching Hospital (1,300 beds)

The hospital wanted to improve and modernise its internal process for the procurement & supply of all medical & surgical requirements. The external supply aspects needed to take account of the hospital's location (in the heart of a major city), whilst the internal distribution of goods was influenced by the 12-storey tower-block design of the building and the congestion during much of the normal working day.

An initial review was carried out by MWA, leading to key recommendations in a number of areas, as outlined below. MWA guided and supported the hospital during implementation of the recommendations.

Introduce e-procurement techniques for a selected range of requirements / internal customers, focussing on lowest total cost, not just on purchase price.

Simplify supply arrangements for a range of high-spend services, such as locum doctors and nurses - and empower selected senior medical staff to call-off requirements as-and-when required.

Re-organise responsibilities for procurement & supply operations within the hospital.

Improve stock management by use of suitable real-time systems and single-point resposibilities for each stock range; reduce / eliminate stock holdings of selected items.

Reschdule and reduce 'ostacles' to efficiency of the internal supply operation; introduce 'out-of-hours' delivery by suppliers to speed up receipt operations.