Blog: Procurement Act 2023 leaves no room to ignore patient voice
Published: 03 Feb 2025
Judith Hughes, Associate Director of Procurement (MCIPS)
On 24 February 2025, the Procurement Act 2023 (PA23) goes live amid a wider backdrop of significant change and pressure in UK health and care. Public sector procurement enters a new era – and for the NHS, the patient voice can no longer be ignored.
Patient involvement has been very prominent in recent months, with increased social value obligations, PA23 requirements and Lord Darzi’s report. And this is only set to continue with the development of the 10 Year Health Plan for England, which aims to reduce the burden on NHS Trusts.
What’s changing – and the opportunities this brings
A key PA23 requirement is preliminary market engagement, a mandate for improving transparency and encouraging meaningful supplier interaction. The aim is to improve transparency and help ensure that providers understand the details of the tender exercise.
This brings greater opportunities for the NHS to incorporate much needed change into the procurement process. Ignoring this isn’t just bad practice, it’s a missed opportunity for efficiency, innovation, and cost savings.
Meaningful patient involvement leads to:
- Smarter procurement – Solutions that better meet patient needs, encouraging adherence to treatments or uptake of new technologies.
- Greater innovation – Diverse input leads to better, more relevant products, but also innovation of the clinical pathway itself.
- NHS burden reduction – Better pathways of care mean better patient outcomes. Fewer failed procurements; saving money and resources.
Involving internal stakeholders and patients as part of that will now not only be valuable – it will also be essential to make the preliminary market engagement meaningful.
From 24 February, PA23 will bring a fundamental shift to NHS procurement. Against a backdrop of budgetary strain and rising patient dissatisfaction, one thing is clear: the NHS can no longer afford to ignore the patient voice in procurement.
Why is the patient voice so important?
Let’s look at the evidence around patient and public involvement and the need to have it built into procurement activities.
Lord Darzi’s report on the English NHS highlighted the lack of the patient voice:
- Patient engagement. The patient voice is not loud enough.
The NHS should aspire to deliver high quality care for all, all of the time. That not only means care that is safe and effective but that treats people with dignity, compassion and respect, making their experiences as positive as they can be. Yet patient satisfaction with services has declined and the number of complaints has increased, while patients are less empowered to make choices about their care. A familiar theme in inquiries into care failings has been patients’ concerns not being heard or acted upon. The NHS is paying out record sums in compensation payments for care failures, which now amount to nearly £3 billion or 1.7 per cent of the entire NHS budget.
The 10 Year Health Plan for England, currently being drafted, will focus on three shifts that the Government, health service, and experts agree need to happen to create a health service fit for the future. These are:
- Moving care from hospitals to communities
- Making better use of technology
- Focusing on preventing sickness, not just treating it
The patient voice is a key driver for this plan to work – and procurement professionals play a pivotal role in achieving these goals.
Involving the patients early in the design of the tendering process gives the opportunity to:
- Have real life experiences help shape the requirement
- Identify health inequalities
- Understand what it is that patients want and the impact on them
- Create an all-encompassing, fit for purpose specification
- Highlight to providers how important the patient voice is, ensuring they design solutions with patients in mind
- Improve outcomes
HQIP have been involving patients and carers in commissioning for many years with great success. This has enabled improvements in relevance, patient-centeredness and efficiency; maximising both value for money and social value through better patient outcomes.
How can you embed the patient voice under PA23 ?
I recently attended the HFMA/HCSA Procurement Forum, where the speakers honed in on the biggest issue facing NHS procurement professionals today – how to release cost savings for the NHS, whilst still delivering a high quality service.
Embedding the patient voice in service design significantly reduces the NHS burden by streamlining processes, enhancing efficiency, and driving cost savings. Prioritising patient-centred care not only improves outcomes but also optimises resource allocation, making healthcare delivery more sustainable.
It also meets the needs under PA23 for robust market engagement, making it clear to potential providers that the patient is at the heart of the requirement.
There are two key stages where patient engagement will now need to be an essential part of procurement with the launch of Procurement Act 23:
Pre-Procurement Preparation – This helps you to fully understand and engage with the market, develop your strategy and plan the procurement process effectively. Whilst this is not a new step in the process, it does allow for greater engagement with internal stakeholders and the patient to really set out the objectives and aims of the requirement. Internal stakeholders are the subject matter experts, but they don’t always engage with the patient to be able to incorporate that much needed voice!
Preliminary Market Engagement – This sets out the needs and benefits of your requirements. Including the patient voice as part of this will be a powerful tool to achieving a successful outcome. Potential providers will be armed with the right information to help them in their bid submission and understand how important the patient needs are.
Need to improve patient engagement ? Act now – or risk falling behind!
The NHS is under immense pressure to deliver cost savings without compromising quality. Ignoring the patient voice isn’t just poor procurement—it’s a failure in service design.
Is your organisation ready for PA23?
If not, we can help. HQIP’s procurement specialists have proven expertise in embedding the patient voice, ensuring compliance, efficiency, and long-term value. Doing this sustainably and valuably throughout the commissioning process can be complicated and time-consuming; it’s a journey that needs careful consideration at each stage.
If the patient voice isn’t yet integrated into your organisation’s procurement, our expert team can help you understand what to prioritise and how to gain the support of key stakeholders – ensuring readiness for the new market engagement requirements of Procurement Act 23.
HQIP is a not-for-profit, with a vision of improved health outcomes for all and a belief that patient and public involvement is imperative to healthcare improvement. We have healthcare procurement specialists with proven expertise of incorporating patient voice, working alongside our Patient and Carer Engagement team.
This tailored expertise enables us to support projects that require deep NHS system knowledge, providing opportunities for long-term value and sustainable improvements that the large generalist consultancies often miss.
Talk to us about how we can help you: [email protected]
Or learn more about developing a strategic approach to embedding patient voice in procurement in this recent blog.