We are holding 2 separate events on Thursday 9 June – the Procurement working party and our 2nd Sustainability Seminar.
In the morning, the Procurement working party will have representatives from NHS Supply Chain to give us an update on the category tower work and their workplan for frameworks coming up. This is particularly relevant as NHS England and Improvement have recently restated their official line on procurement and the pathology networks only using Category towers. BIVDA will be working closely with the national team at NHSEI commercial and the category tower as they aim to re-state this strategy as procurement is a key feature of network maturity development and the pathology networks will be expected to include within their network work plans to improve procurement.
Procurement is one of the 7 domains which characterise a Pathology network and there must be a shared, joint procurement strategy with a rocust supply chain and for example, a large, shared managed service contract across a network or a clear and defined timeline to achieve one.
Therefore attendance at this event will help members understand the mechanisms and activities to expect and prepare for.
Also on the agenda is a session with colleagues from NHS Digital.
Members have asked BIVDA to seek clarification around the process and considerations by NHSX when they decide mandated changes which affect supplier instruments and operating systems, and how they impact contractual arrangements and IVD regulatory requirements.
This session is intended to be an open discussion with members to understand the challenges with this process, to discuss the application of DCB0129 and also to discuss their current surveys on blockers to digital adoption to identify quantitative evidence and a prioritised list of blockers to adoption which will be used to develop further policy and measures for boosting standards adoption and interoperability, integration, data architecture issues and blockers in patient pathways that involve several care settings.
Finally, with the IVDR coming into its full application from 26th May, we will be covering the issues resulting from the definition of economic operators and managed services and the ongoing work we are undertaking with MHRA on this topic for consideration for UKCA as well as a general overview in the context of procurement.
Following lunch which will be provided, we then move into our Sustainability Seminar.
We will have NHS England doing a session on the practical application of the Evergreen framework and work through the examples that they will be expecting to be delivered by Trusts and suppliers through the supply chain in relation to each of the scopes within the Net Zero strategy.
Following NHS England, we will have UK CPI, an independent DeepTech innovation centre, who emerged as a leading enabler in addressing systematic challenges and convening major corporations and solution providers to address global supply chain issues that continue to negatively impact people and planet.
Their session will address the systematic challenges in IVD, transitioning to sustainable and circular business models for better patient outcomes. What are systemic challenges and how do we innovate together.
This is not intended to be a technical session, but to seek to examine how the requirements of the sustainability agenda affect members in their daily operations, for example tenders, readiness, qualification and the bold statement from the NHS to not use suppliers who do not meet the requirements by 2030, and how BIVDA members and attendees can understand and influence changes within their organisations to meet the requirements and move towards the targets set through this agenda.
There will also be a session on the activities that laboratories are tasked with to keep up their end of the NHS Net Zero agenda to close.
The topics being covered over the course of the day do not just affect members registered to the procurement working party and members who are part of regulatory, digital, manufacturing and export and our environmental working parties should take away valuable information from the day.
You can register for both meetings below;
