NHS trusts save £240,000 on mobile voice and data services

The requirement

Many organisations routinely purchase mobile voice and data services which can often result in varied contract end dates from having to acquire individual mobile phones at different times. This can also create a barrier to switching suppliers to gain better value, as potential savings may be reduced or lost due to early termination charges. To help combat this problem, we wanted to help customers find a way to aggregate their mobile requirements with other customers, which would ultimately help achieve savings.

Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust had a combined requirement for 1,159 connections. They all took part in our free aggregation service along with 9 other public sector bodies, in an effort to aggregate demand and achieve greater savings.

The solution

We ran a competitive tender using lot 6 of the Network Services framework agreement, the best value offer in the market was obtained by taking into consideration both price and quality factors and the further competition was concluded with sealed bids. The competition, which took place between April and May 2019, brought together common mobile voice and data services of 12 customers, amounting to over 13,203 connections.

The 3 NHS foundation trusts along with the other participants taking part in the aggregation made use of our indicative savings analysis which we carried out pre-procurement. This reassured all parties that the time and effort put in would be well rewarded and that any risk of change that was identified was mitigated by the wrap-around migration service that would be provided by the successful bidder. The NHS trusts found that they faced obstacles when trying to obtain buy-in from key stakeholders in the group and convince decision-makers that this was the most effective route to market. Fortunately, the indicative savings analysis helped them to tackle these obstacles as they could prove that the aggregation process would be worthwhile.

The results

The NHS foundation trusts achieved average savings of 75% across the 3 hospital groups, with identified savings of £240,000. The total savings achieved for all 12 customers was £1.5miollion, an average of 73% across participating customers.

A representative from the NHS foundation trusts said:

“We found CCS to be very helpful in leading our group of hospitals through the procurement process. They explained the steps clearly and assisted with the data gathering and analysis which can be difficult for those not used to dealing with this particular commodity. In terms of the actual procurement process, this went smoothly and the result was even better than expected with average savings of 75% across our group of Hospitals.

CCS were responsive to queries around all aspects of the process and always willing to help. They were easy to contact and happy to discuss any issues or queries raised and these were always resolved quickly.

We have identified savings of £240,000 across the 3 hospitals that joined the procurement and this money can now be channelled back into those organisations to ultimately help deliver better patient care services.”

If you would like to take part in a mobile voice and data aggregation, please complete our online form quoting ‘Mobile voice and data aggregation’ and a member of our team will be in touch.