14 September 2022 by Mat Oram
Back in 2017, shortly after we successfully launched our Price Benchmarking (PB) service across 200 NHS provider trusts in England, we knew that benchmarking only provided visibility of 10-15% of non-pay spend. What’s more, benchmarking was only being used for products, with hospitals lacking visibility of services, maintenance and other non-purchase order spend. Part of the problem was that the analytics tools on the market lacked the classification needed to make sense of spend data in a way that was useful for the better category teams, clinicians and suppliers.
With so many different ways to classify spend across different specialities, it was clear to us that category managers needed more detail, including that related to component, material, compatibility and procedure. This led us to talk with procurement teams across the country, and in doing so, we started to understand how important visibility is for identifying spend-saving opportunities, especially with the move towards Integrated Care Systems (ICSs).
Naturally then, we wanted to create a service that could provide 100% visibility for users and, after a lot of great discussion, plenty of planning, and multiple rounds of testing, Procurement Dashboard (PD) was born – a service that provides trusts and ICS teams with a level of visibility like no other. As well as greater visibility within PD, we also created a team of procurement / ex-clinicians to add more detailed classification to spend, including all the major clinical categories, allowing for greater analysis across a range of attributes. But we didn’t stop there. Over the years, we have continued to refine and develop PD, and in 2020 we launched PD+, which goes beyond the standard PD package to provide our customers with access to a full analytics service.
What is PD+?
PD+ is more than just a tool. Users of PD+ get full access to our applications, resulting in greater visibility and control over spend. In addition, PD+ customers benefit from receiving greater support from our incredible team, who surface the insight to make it easier for hospitals to take action and go deeper into clinical spend areas than anyone else in the market, helping to drive greater ROI for trusts and ICSs.
We understand that the move towards an integrated model of care is a big task that requires a greater level of visibility and control, which is why we continue to adapt PD and PD+ to ensure that we are offering ICS procurement leads and teams the tools and support they need to navigate the transition effectively.
So, what exactly is included with PD+?
As well as gaining access to our Price Benchmarking (PB) and Procurement Dashboard (PD) applications, PD+ users receive:
To date, PD+ customers have used AdviseInc to identify spend by Category Tower, distinguish benchmarks for specific areas within the trust (e.g., trauma), focus on in and out of region spend from a social value perspective, and to validate and challenge the HCTED (High-Cost Tariff Excluded Devices) reclaim process. The results speak for themselves, with HCTED analysis alone providing a growing number of trusts with a 23:1+ ROI.
Of course, we know that your team could attempt this form of analysis without our support, but at what cost? After all, missing a week of HCTED reclaims can make a huge financial impact, and providing the level of detail needed to maximise results across the board is time-consuming, which may result in efforts being taken away from core day job. At AdviseInc, we live and breathe analytics and data, and our team is equipped to run analysis on large data sets quickly, with great precision – freeing up precious time for your team to focus on value and delivery.
Which trusts are using PD+?
PD+ is now our most subscribed to service, providing significant ROI for NHS organisations up and down the country, including South East London ICS (SmartTogether), Bath, Swindon and Wiltshire ICS, North West London ICS, Leicestershire ICS, Liverpool University Hospitals, South Tees, Glasgow and Clyde, County Durham… the list goes on! Not to mention, we’re also in conversation with a number of other ICS teams who are interested in subscribing to the service.
But don’t just take our word for it, here’s what some of our PD+ users had to say:
Rob Webb, Director of Procurement, Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Partnership (BSW Partnership) said: “[Procurement Dashboard] gives us a plethora of information and transparency we wouldn’t usually have. We’ve got fairly high ambitions about what we want to do with our information and data, and AdviseInc is pivotal to that in terms of how to use it in the best way and present it in the best way so that we can make informed decisions.”
David Lawson (SmartTogether), Chief Procurement Officer, Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust said: “I’ve been working with AdviseInc since they set up the national price benchmarking tool. Since then, our relationship has broadened, and we are now using Procurement Dashboard, Procurement Dashboard Plus and Catalogue Check, to help us to understand spend categories and contract management in more detail.
If you’re looking for more than just a system, and you want proactive support and insights, then working with AdviseInc is a no-brainer. They provide the complete package — a true collaborative service.”
Want to find out more about Procurement Dashboard and Procurement Dashboard Plus? Contact us at support@adviseinc.co.uk.
