Christmas 2022: A look back at our key achievements

Michael Pace, NHS LPP Managing Director, reflects on the past 12 months.

As I write this blog entry, I, along with many others I’m sure, have that sense of anticipation for the festive break and familiar decisions on what date it’s acceptable to put up the Christmas tree and crack open the Quality Street tin. There’s also the excitement about what the New Year will bring for us as a business - continuing to acknowledge what an incredibly busy time it is for the NHS system with the challenges of the winter period.

For me, I wanted to take some time during the past week to reflect on what we have achieved at NHS LPP in 2022 and how we have supported our members to deliver services.

But before I share my thoughts, I’m sure you will all join me in firstly thanking NHS workers up and down the country for their relentless work, and share thanks in particular to those who will be working over the festive period this year.

Speaking with colleagues across the NHS, it’s without any doubt been an extremely busy year for everyone, and we’ve really enjoyed working with our members and partners to support with their needs.

Engaging with our members in person
I can’t not mention the great success of our NHS LPP Conference held in person in November where we welcomed some great key note speakers, including Jacqui Rock and Andrew Ridley. The day was an opportunity to join together to celebrate the work that we were able to collaborate on through the valued partnership with our members over the past 12 months. It was also an opportunity for us to re-connect over a day packed with discussion on how we can tackle the challenges we’re facing as the NHS at the moment. It was amazing to see each other in person after so long and we continue to receive fantastic feedback about the day from our members. 

As well as hosting our own events, our teams have been out and about at various conferences meeting with members, including the HCSA Winter Conference where our very own Medicines Optimisation and Pharmacy Procurement (MOPP) team won the Clinical Procurement in Partnership Award for creating a regional homecare dashboard to monitor a set of high-level, nationally recognised KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for homecare medicine services. You can read more about this award win here.

Social Value Tool
Our Sustainability and Social Value team has gone from strength to strength this year, with the introduction of new team members and the development of the Social Value Tool - a reporting and monitoring tool which we procured on behalf of the five London ICBs to support standardising the approach to social value across the region. If you’d like to read more about the tool or get in touch with us about how it can benefit your NHS organisation, please click here.

Investment Options Programme
This year we also kicked off our Investment Options Programme, which is all about the re-investment of profit for NHS LPP members. The programme is made up of eight projects across a range of specialties, including our Procurement Legal Surgeries. We hosted the first one of these surgeries back in November where we teamed up with Hempsons LLP to provide our members with general advice and timely relevant updates on impending legislative changes and other external factors affecting procurement legal activities within NHS trusts. We had positive feedback from attendees and we’re very much looking forward to holding more sessions in 2023.

Additions to the team
We are excited to have welcomed new staff members over the past 12 months to enhance our work to support our customers and members and I continue to be so proud of the NHS LPP team on everything we have achieved over the past year. To top off a great year, we moved offices this month and our office is now situated close to the Thames.

It leaves me with one more thing to say - however you are marking the festive period, we hope you have a restful time and we look forward to working together with our members and partners again in the new year.