A group of NHS trusts have achieved potential savings of nearly 30 per cent on this year’s bill for IT Hardware via an on-line auction. In conjunction with Collaborative Procurement organisations, a two-hour e-auction, organised by the Office of Government Commerce’s Coordinated Procurement Division and run by TradingPartners saw 11 IT hardware suppliers battle to get the business of 137 NHS Trusts, grouped into six regional consortia. Between them, these consortia account for nearly a third of all the desktops and laptops needed by the NHS over the next 18 months.The event was led and hosted by Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust which originated the idea. Projected savings worth nearly 30 per cent, over 4.5m pounds should reduce the bill for PC equipment from 16m to 11.5m pounds. The total package includes over 21,000 desktop PCs and nearly 4500 laptops.

The event was run from Hull at the offices of the Procurement North East NHS Procurement Confederation. There were six viewing centres across the country. The suppliers remained anonymous throughout the process to ensure fair competition. The 11 suppliers who participated in the eAuction were all selected from the OGCbuying.solutions Framework Agreement. 25 suppliers had been invited to submit specification proposals. Using the Framework means that the opportunity did not have to be advertised in Official Journal of the EU as the Framework already meets EU Procurement Directive regulations.

The eAuction programme receives funding from the Efficiency Challenge Funding. The programme is gathering momentum and the OGC is looking for participants across all areas of the public sector. For more information contact Mike Hofman Tel: 07919 201 469, E-mail michael.hofman@ogc.gsi.gov.uk