Sustainable Procurement

Background and requirement

Requirement: NP18423 Haemodialysis Machines and Consumables.

Contract duration: 4 years with the option to extend by 24 months.

Contract value: Up to £22.4 million.

Route to market: Open Procedure.

Background:

This case study explores the start of a sustainability journey seeking relevant environmental and social improvement, for complex medical equipment and services, with key suppliers to the Haemodialysis Machines and Consumables framework.

The framework, awarded in October 2023, comprises 6 Lots: 1) Unit Haemodialysis Machines 2) Home based Haemodialysis Machines 3) Dialysers 4) Generic Consumables 5) Needles 6) Portable Reverse Osmosis (RO) Units.

National Procurement is the Centre of Procurement Expertise for the NHS Scotland (NHSS), providing expert advice and support to Health Boards (HBs) on procurement matters. National Procurement manages over £1.5 billion in national contracts, for medicines, medical services / consumables, non-medical supplies and services, food, and equipment used within our hospitals and health services.

The NHSS Sustainable Procurement Steering Group (SPSG) continues to be the focal point and core oversight group for sustainable procurement activities across NHSS Procurement teams.

The intended audience for this case study comprises:

Senior NHSS stakeholders including service managers,
Medical directors & clinicians,
Climate and Circular Economy specialists.
Procurement practitioners in public bodies, and
The general public.

Framework Objectives

NHSS objectives for the framework majored on addressing environmental challenges with the suppliers throughout the life cycle of Haemodialysis machines and consumable products, specifically:

To encourage and enable relevant recycling of products and associated packaging.
To support the circular economy through end-of-life management of machines.
To identify sources of carbon emissions in the life cycle of consumables and machines (from manufacturing to point of sale), and where practical the extent of these emissions.

This case study describes the critical initial steps taken, working collaboratively with key suppliers, in the journey towards meaningful progress to net zero, the circular economy and social improvement. This provides evidence on how NHSS commodity managers are tackling sustainability challenges within complex medical device contracting procedures, with lessons for this and other procurements.

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