
Helping hospitals in the race to tackle urgent maintenance
NHS LPP’s Minor Works and Maintenance dynamic purchasing system (DPS) is helping trusts act quickly to tackle critical repairs following the announcement by the government in December of £600 million for maintenance in NHS hospitals.
The funding, which was allocated across 178 trusts for 1,800 projects including ward refurbishments, new electrical infrastructure and upgraded ventilation systems must be spent by March 2021, meaning the race is on - and trusts are taking advantage of the Minor Works and Maintenance DPS as a quick and compliant route to market.
A DPS is an electronic purchasing system used to procure goods, works, or services which provides buyers with access to a pool of pre-qualified suppliers. Unlike a traditional framework, suppliers can apply to join at any time.
Shortlisting functionality has been enhanced to allow buyers to filter supplier lists by category, region, and value and can be further filtered based on an optional capability assessment to ensure only those suppliers capable of meeting a specific requirement are invited to bid. This cuts down time for both the buyer and supplier.
Buyers wishing to procure specific maintenance contracts have an option to include SFG20 as a filter to ensure they only invite suppliers who are set up to carry our planned maintenance in line with the SFG20 standards.
In line with the NHS LPP Estates, Facilities and Professional Services strategy, suppliers on the DPS have signed a charter committing them to working with contracting authorities and NHS LPP to transition to net zero carbon as early as possible.
The Minor Works and Maintenance DPS was set up with a number of categories developed to help trusts tackle some of their backlog maintenance projects, a bill that totals c. £1.7bn across London NHS trusts. New categories can be added throughout the life of the agreement, so if a trust cannot find a relevant category, the team can review and add additional in scope categories to the DPS accordingly.
To find out more contact Daniel.Lewin@gstt.nhs.uk or Hamish.McDonald@gstt.nhs.uk