University Hopsitals of Leicester NHS Trust

The Challenge

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), needed more than the standard Procurement Dashboard package to gain value from the insights it could provide. Despite helping NHS provider trusts realise significant benefits in unwarranted variation, benchmarking could only provide visibility to 10-15% of non-pay spend and it was only being used for products, with hospitals lacking visibility of services, maintenance and other non-purchase order spend. The analytical tools on the market lacked
the classification needed to make sense of spend data in a way that was useful for category teams, clinicians and suppliers. As a
result, Adviselnc began work on the development of a new product, Platform..

“Our primary reason for creating Platform was to increase visibility of non-pay spend to 100%. With so many ways to classify spend across specialties, it was clear to us that category managers needed more detail, relating to component, material, compatibility and procedure” said Mat Oram, CEO, Adviselnc

The Solution

Using Adviselnc’s Platform+ UHL was able to have greater visibility and control over their spend.

“Not only do we get the tool for benchmarking we also get expert analytics support”

explained David Streets, Head of Procurement and Supplies at UHL. “Adviselnc quickly provides us with reports and insights into our spend and points us to opportunities it has seen in other organisations. You don’t always get that with other solutions, which is where the added value is”. The Adviselnc team goes deeper into areas of clinical spend than anyone else in the market, driving greater ROI for NHS trusts and ICSs.

Adviselnc’s 10th percentile analysis has helped UHL identify areas of high price variation and find alternative sources for products. “We’ve seen a lot of benefit from Adviselnc’s ability to drill down on a granular level with their data mapping and analysis, which has helped us identify cost-saving opportunities over the years” said David.

The Benefits

“In less than 12 months, we identified cost-savings opportunities that covered the cost of the service for many years to come,” explained David. “And when we look for opportunities, it’s reassuring to see things we already knew about because it reinforces the good work our team is doing.” As part of the Platform+ offering, the trust also benefits from access to Adviselnc’s high-cost tariff excluded device (HCTED) analysis at no extra cost which checks compliance against procurement spend.

This year alone, it has helped us to identify £262k worth of missed reclaims. The trust is working with Adviselnc to identify
price changes, which help UHL to forecast spend, negotiate with suppliers and budget more effectively. “With inflation rates rising and supply chain disruption resulting in an ever-increasing cost of care, we’re now dedicating a lot of time to cost improvement, cost avoidance and mitigation,” explained David.

Using Adviselnc ensures we are better equipped to have conversations about the reality of price increases, offering us a point of comparison with other trusts. Their Price Change capability makes the whole process a lot easier.”

In one instance, the trust used Adviselnc to benchmark one of its largest suppliers to mitigate inflation, leading to £539k worth of
cost avoidance.

UHL was one of the first NHS organisations to go live with the new Adviselne Platform which brings together its suite of award-winning spend and analytics applications. This includes Control Tower, which simplifies the vast amounts of information being collected and managed in each care setting within an Integrated Care System, helping teams to benchmark nationally.

Beyond procurement, Adviselnc is working with UHL’s finance and procurement department to create analytics for purchase to pay measures. This will ensure future-focused finance KPls are tracked across the trust while providing users with more enhanced analytical tools to reduce the burden of manual data entry.