A current contract between the Authority and its incumbent provider (trading as ‘NHS Supply Chain Ltd’) relating to the procurement and supply chain of goods in the NHS is due to expire on 30.9.2018. As part of the Future Operating Model (FOM), the Authority is disaggregating the services and this procurement is for the award of a single contract for the provision of transactional services over a 3-year + 2-year term. The supplier will support the FOM in its aim to deliver on going annualised c 600 000 000 GBP in savings by growing market share from approximately 40 % to 80 %. A functional provision of the services to customers along with excellent customer query management is essential to delivery of this growth. The supplier must provide a flexible platform capable of dealing with increases in transactional activity in line with anticipated growth.

The scope of this procurement is for a single transactional processing service providing:

— accounts payable (invoice processing and payment);

— accounts receivable (sales invoice generation and cash collection);

— customer service for invoice queries;

— cash and treasury management (i.e. keeping track of liquidity of the business);

— savings tracking and reporting;

— administration, configuration and improvement of financial systems; and

— consolidation of the FOM financial information including periodic reporting, forecasts and annual planning information.

The supplier will be required to deliver a coherent financial transactional service across the disaggregated functions of the FOM, ensuring that consolidated invoicing for customers is maintained.

The objectives for the Services include, but are not limited to:

— delivering seamless service continuity through transition to the FOM;

— enabling the on-going delivery of the FOM;

— enhancing the effectiveness and sustainability of FOM financial service processes and controls;

— delivering improvements across the supply chain through active enablement of FOM objectives and the enhancement of the customer experience through timely financial data;

— facilitating decision making in the Authority through the provision of accurate and timely financial data.

The supplier must maintain the current practice of providing consolidated monthly invoices to the NHS Customers. Consolidated invoicing is seen as a key contributor to growth ambitions, and is received extremely favourably by existing and future NHS Supply Chain Customers (including but not limited to NHS trusts, other NHS entities, other UK government department agencies or other statutory bodies and/or private sector providers of NHS funded care).

The supplier must ensure high degrees of accuracy are maintained, to preserve the integrity of financial controls and protect the public purse. The incumbent provider is currently responsible (through the NHS Supply Chain contract) for transacting product spend of circa 2 000 000 000 GBP (goods purchased by NHS and non-NHS customers), and circa 200 000 000 GBP of operational spend. The supplier will be responsible for transacting the current volume of spend and increased expenditure as this increases under the FOM.

The supplier will be required to provide robust debtor and creditor management in order to manage cash flow with growing volumes of transactions. This will be enabled by the customer/supplier support functions, and managed through robust contractual key performance indicators.

A full description of the Services is more specifically set out in the procurement documentation.