The procurement team, based at Westmorland General Hospital but who cover all the Trust’s hospitals, began the intense online application process to become accredited in January 2014. Paul Dowell, Deputy Head of Procurement and Supplies, UHMBT, said: “I am really pleased that we have been successful in achieving the CIPS accreditation. This means that the Procurement and Supplies Department within the Trust has the nationally recognised procurement governance mechanisms in place to provide effective supply assurance and compliance. We are the first individual NHS Trust to achieve this standard and, as a provider of services to our clinical colleagues, it underpins their recent achievements and the continuing focus of the Trust to develop and improve patient care. The application process was very in-depth and made us really look at ourselves and the service that we offer to both staff in the Trust and external partners and suppliers that we deal with. The in-depth and detailed process began February 2014 and was finally submitted in April 2015.
Paul, continued: “The first step was for us to complete the CIPS online questionnaire to identify whether we would be eligible for accreditation. The questionnaire asked for information on leadership and organisation, strategy, people, processes and system and performance management. We scored a respectable 75% and it gave us some really useful feedback to reflect on – both in terms of what we were doing well and where we needed to do further work. “It was essential that we completed each dimension in full so we took a strategic approach and only moved onto the next section when we were fully satisfied that we had completed the last dimension in full. We also worked closely with our CIPS advisor for guidance and support which helped us to be confident we had fulfilled each requirement.”
David Noble, Group CEO at CIPS commented; “Congratulations to UHMBT on its achievement of Corporate Certification. Everyone who was involved in the process should be extremely proud of the outcome. I have no doubt that following this success, UHMBT will continue to go from strength to strength. “They have provided extensive evidence to demonstrate that procurement is well respected and recognised within the organisation amongst senior management and at board level. UHMBT have a clear structure of policies, procedures and processes that are well embedded within the organisation. “Ethics is high on the CIPS agenda and must always be at the forefront of procurement activity, therefore it is great to see such a strong commitment to legal compliance and ethical procurement practice from this organisation.”
yAaron Cummins, Director of Finance and Deputy Chief Executive, UHMBT, said: “This is a fantastic achievement for the Procurement and Supplies team. It is entirely well deserved and I could not be more proud of the team.” Jim Collins Head of Procurement and Supplies, added: “What was really pleasing is the comments back from CIPS on the robustness of our submission and the quality behind the policies. I am really pleased with this achievement by the Procurement and Supplies team.”