NHS procurement hub streamlines mobile suppliers

The East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub (CPH) has slashed its costs by streamlining its mobie phone contracts.

The CPH represents NHS Primary Care and Acute Trusts across the east of England, and has a combined spend of £1.5bn. Due to the nature of their jobs, the professionals it serves are often away from the office and depend a great deal on mobile communication and data, with 11,500 staff across 40 trusts needing mobile connectivity.

East of England CPH assistant director of procurement Glen Gooch said: "We had very limited visibility on our mobile device estate. We didn't really know how many phones we had out there."

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Gooch was having to cope with thousands of mobile handsets supplied by a number of networks. The total spend on mobile voice was £1.4m per year.

The CPH put a contract for the whole estate out to tender and Gooch said geographical coverage was a prime deciding factor. Many of the professionals supported by the CPH go out into remote areas and rely heavily on their mobiles to not only stay informed but also to keep safe. Not all of the shortlist was able to provide reliable cover around areas in north Norfolk.

Gooch chose T-Mobile, not only because of its coverage – in tests, call dropouts were limited to three per cent – but also because it was able to provide him with good management of information on billing and usage.

Wireless from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more…

A is for Antivirus
B is for Bluetooth
C is for The Cloud
D is for dotMobi
E is for Email
F is for FMC
G is for GPS
H is for HSDPA
I is for i-mode
J is for Japan Air
K is for Korea
L is for LBS
M is for M2M
N is for NFC
O is for Operating systems
P is for Pubs
Q is for QoS
R is for Roaming
S is for Satellite
T is for TV
U is for UMTS
V is for Virgin
W is for WiMax
X is for XDA
Y is for Yucca
Z is for Zigbee

As a result of streamlining mobile services to the area Gooch has managed to reduce yearly spend to around £730,000 – a saving of 60 per cent.

At the moment, around 8,000 users have been migrated over to T-Mobile. When the roll-out is finished, it will be the largest the mobile carrier has achieved in the UK.

For the future Gooch plans to distribute T-Mobile phones to lone workers. They will be given special handsets with panic buttons, which put them straight through to a help desk if they need urgent assistance or are in any danger.

For Gooch it's all about strength in numbers. Consolidating the mobile estate gives him clout as a buyer.

He said: "We have a bigger stick. Before, we couldn't necessarily get the best deal. We are a more important customer now."