Blog: Increasing value by embedding the patient voice in procurement
Published: 28 Oct 2024
Clare Fountain, Associate Director of Quality Improvement
With 25% of the NHS budget allocated to procurement, the need to identify and act upon every opportunity to drive greater value across the entire supply chain is clear. Integrating patient input into procurement can play a transformative role here, shifting the focus to how the product or service contributes to patient care.
By embedding patient engagement into the procurement process, improvements can be made in relevance, patient-centeredness and efficiency, maximising both value for money and social value through better patient outcomes.
It’s undoubtedly the right thing to do – but now it’s also becoming an essential thing to do. With Lord Darzi highlighting that the patient voice is not loud enough in NHS England, plus the launch of Change NHS, patient engagement is under the spotlight. The Social Value Act and the UK Government’s Social Value Model mandate the inclusion of social value criteria in supplier selection and the Procurement Act 2023 is set to raise expectations even further.
Drawing on our years of specialist procurement experience, we outline key considerations for developing a strategic approach to integrating the patient voice in your organisation’s procurement. We also offer top tips for a structured, impactful and inclusive process.
1. Ensure your purpose for engaging patients is clear – and supported
For each procurement, consider how patient engagement could improve your decision-making. Use this understanding to identify a well-defined set of outcomes that you are looking to achieve. These outcomes should translate into specific patient engagement procurement goals and activities.
Ensure you have the support of senior leaders and other key stakeholders by clearly communicating the value of patient engagement. For example, patient engagement can help to:
- Increase your social value metrics
- Form part of the Procurement Act preliminary market engagement, to help providers understand and prioritise key criteria, features and functionality of goods and services
- Future proof, by building aspirational intent into your procurement
- Improve both quality of care and patient adherence with treatment by better meeting patient needs
- Reduce risk
2. Engage early and throughout the procurement process
For engagement to be meaningful it needs to form a fundamental part of the commissioning process, not just be a formality. As with any other stakeholder engagement, start early and plan how you will engage throughout the procurement lifecycle. This might include:
- Pre-market engagement to better understand needs and inform later procurement practices
- Patients helping to set supplier selection criteria and/or questions in the Invitation to Tender process
- Inviting patient participation in tender evaluations to influence bid scoring
- Incorporating measures for patient engagement in the contracts and ensuring continuous involvement throughout the project lifecycle, to help maintain a focus on patient outcomes
- Patients co-designing contract management metrics, to monitor supplier progress and compliance
- Ongoing engagement for continuous refinements in service delivery
Embedding patient involvement at each stage of the process:
3. Develop structured and inclusive engagement plans
Structured, multi-dimensional planning up-front helps maximise the benefits of engagement, ensuring clarity of roles, streamlined communication and compliance with best practices. Getting this right from the outset can often prove challenging. Some key points to consider are:
Your engagement model:
- Consultation – gathering input from patients and the public on specific issues
- Collaboration – involving patients directly in decision-making processes, from policy development to care pathway design
- Advisory – panels for regular feedback and contribution to strategic planning
Legal and confidentiality requirements:
- Information Governance when collecting personal or sensitive data, e.g. consent, legitimate interest, privacy notices
- Declarations of interest to protect both patients and the integrity of the process
Participation support
- Valuing people’s time, including payment for involvement (using set criteria)
- Using an experienced engagement facilitator – the benefits will easily outweigh the costs
- Developing a code of conduct for both staff and participants
- Safeguarding and emotional support
Participation of participants:
- Ensure engagement reaches a diverse range of patients, including marginalised and underserved communities (you could use the CORE20PLUS5 list as a guide) to gather perspectives from different demographics and lived experiences
- Tailor engagement formats and methods (e.g. larger fonts, translations, different communication formats) to remove barriers to participation, ensuring diverse voices are heard
- Create realistic timelines for engagement to allow meaningful contributions
Communicate continuously and effectively:
Use various methods, like focus groups, surveys and social media, to keep patients informed and engaged throughout the procurement process, tailoring communication to their needs. Consider setting up feedback loops so that participants know how their input has been used to shape decisions – this reinforces the value of their involvement.
4. Ensure your team have the right skills – and your participants do too
Effective patient engagement not only involves equipping your team to engage with patients successfully, but also ensuring participants have the skills and knowledge for meaningful participation. You may wish to consider:
- Training: Educate patients on procurement processes, bid evaluations and legal considerations
- Resources: Use patient advisory councils, workshops and online platforms to provide necessary tools
- Engagement toolkit: Create a toolkit with guidelines for evaluations and responsibilities
- Education: Offer informational sessions and materials to clarify patients’ roles in healthcare
5. Recognise the importance of continuous improvement
Embedding patient engagement into procurement is a journey. If this is new to your organisation, we would recommend a) starting with involvement in part of a procurement process and b) selecting a procurement with clear benefit of patient involvement (a ‘quick win’). We would not suggest adopting all aspects we have outlined at the same time.
Ultimately patient engagement will become embedded in your ‘business as usual’, with engagement practices tweaked and improved over time.
Measuring procurement outcomes (i.e. the benefits enabled) from the outset and ensuring ongoing engagement with wider stakeholders and participants means that you will be able to take a structured, data-informed approach to continuous improvement.
