Procurement
The Countess of Chester employs a team of professional staff to undertake its Procurement activities. The Procurement function has evolved over the last ten years into a dedicated department delivering increased efficiencies and quality year on year. In addition, the department has reduced risk through providing both advice on European Procurement legislation and the formatting and rollout of robust policies and procedures in relation to the procurement of goods and services.
The procurement departments vision
"To deliver an Informed Integrated Sustainable Commercial Procurement and Supply Chain Management function to the Countess of Chester Hospital Foundation Trust and partnering organisations. Encompassing the development of safe, innovative healthcare solutions, modern supply chain technologies and Lean commercial strategies. To drive down cost in a transparent and compliant manner."
Selling to the Countess
The procurement department advertises all its formal requirements through the Atamis e-tendering portal. If you believe to have an innovative product or service or believe you can offer the Trust cost savings, then please contact one of the team.
Contact details
Functions of procurement
The procurement department is broken down into the following areas, details of each area can be located by clicking on the left-hand menu.
Transparency
As part of our obligations to meet with transparency requirements, all Trust awarded contracts over the value of £30,000 (inc VAT) will be made available on the Website: Contracts Finder in addition all awards made in excess of the EU procurement threshold are located on Tenders Electronic.
The following file contains the Trust's spend by supplier, year to date, updated on a monthly basis:
The following files show the Trust's spend by supplier for previous Financial Years:
Purchasing team
The purchasing team is responsible for general transactional and tactical purchasing activities. This includes customer services, purchase order queries, delivery queries, pricing agreements and quotation exercises. You can find further information on the purchasing and supplies teams here.
Strategic procurement
The strategic procurement team are responsible for all major cost reduction schemes, European Procurement Directive compliance and overall commercial and procurement advice to the organisation. The team generally manage all contract expenditure in excess of £100,000. You can find further information on the strategic procurement and tendering team here.
Supplies and deliveries
The Supplies team are responsible for the Trusts goods receipt & distribution centre, materials management service and overall logistics strategy for the organisation. You can find futher information about supplies and deliveries here.
Supplier representatives policy, product trials and clinical innovation
The Clinical Procurement Specialist Nurse is responsible for clinical engagement, co-ordinating clinical trials of alternative, new and innovative products and management of supplier representatives in relation to such projects. The service also acts in an advisory capacity including product problems or sourcing alternatives when required. You can find further information about product trials and clinical innovation here
Bribery Act 2010
A bribe is a financial or other advantage intended to induce or reward the ‘improper performance’ of a person’s official public functions or work activities.
Generally, this means offering or receiving something of value to influence a transaction that someone shouldn’t do (offences include offering, promising, giving, requesting, accepting, or agreeing to accept).
Section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 includes a ‘corporate’ offence, which means that commercial organisations may be held legally liable if they fail to take steps to prevent bribery by those who are associated with it. There is a defence for organisations if they can prove that they had in place adequate procedures designed to prevent bribery from occurring on its behalf. This law is applicable to NHS bodies, meaning that the Trust must put measures in place to prevent bribery from happening. Please see the Trust’s Bribery Act Statement.