Introduction
The NHS spends an estimated £30 billion on third party goods and services each year, with over 80,000 suppliers. Of that c.£30 billion, the value spent through Frameworks is in the region of £17 billion.
When NHS England launched the Central Commercial Function (CCF) in July 2022, one of its commitments was to review the frameworks used by NHS buyers.
The objective was to make it easier for suppliers to do business with the NHS and to ensure the NHS is getting the best value for money from those frameworks.
The accreditation and review process, which concluded in January 2024 was the first step towards the simplification of routes to market for NHS buyers and the optimisation of the framework landscape.
As part of this process, NHS England will be consulting on proposed changes to the NHS Standard Contract for 2024/25.
With effect from 1 April 2024, the amended Standard Contract requires the use of accredited frameworks (or, pending accreditation, frameworks hosted by accredited hosts) by NHS trusts and foundation trusts when purchasing goods, services and works which cover those frameworks.
The case for change and benefits for the NHS
The framework accreditation process is intended to deliver benefits to NHS buyers and suppliers and ensures that NHS Commercial is delivering the best value for money for the British taxpayer.
Benefits to the NHS:
- Improved consistency across framework standards and specifications.
- Regulatory and commercial risk will be managed in an optimal way by mandating the national NHS terms and conditions for the procurement of goods, services, and works.
- Enhanced patient benefits with better access to innovative products and services, by reducing barriers to entry for SMEs and innovators.
- Reduced procurement time, resource, and cost.
- Removal of framework duplication.
- Effective cash release or cost avoidance through more efficient procurements, allowing for additional funds to be re-directed to support patient care.
- Maximises the NHS commercial leverage at local, regional, and national levels.
- Enable nationwide commercial guidance and strategy to be created and supported (for example, nationwide category taxonomy enabling structure and organisation across all NHS procurements).
- Improved tracking of supplier performance, driven by standardisation of frameworks.
Benefits to NHS buyers:
- Assurance that frameworks adhere to a set of “best in class” standards, by leveraging NHS category expertise and experience so benefits can be shared across the whole NHS system.
- Enables NHS buyers to spend more time building strong supplier and organisation relationships; this will enhance the quality of service delivery to the NHS buyer.
- Enables local and regional procurement resources to be focused on other key commercial priorities (such as strategic supplier relationship building, and enhanced organisation relationship building to support better procurement pipelines).
- Simplifies the process for identifying the best route to market.
- Realisation of benefits of NHS collective purchasing power.
Benefits to suppliers:
- Streamlines and demystifies the routes to contract with the NHS, particularly for SMEs.
- Ensures that bidding for contracts is simpler and more cost effective.
- Enables aggregation of requirements allowing suppliers to deliver economies of scale at a specialist category level.
What this means for NHS buyers
The accreditation programme
The accreditation process is in two stages: one for framework host accreditation, which was concluded in January 2024, and one for framework sub-category accreditation. These have different process, as outlined below:
Framework host accreditation
The framework host accreditation assessed organisations against 18 framework and commercial standards.
Sub-Category framework accreditation
NHS England are now embarking on a framework sub-category accreditation process.
This builds on the work already undertaken in 2 categories/sub-categories, where optimisation and accreditation have already taken place:
- Digital and Technology: NHS England » Procurement framework strategy recommendations
- Agency (as a sub-category of Workforce): NHS England » Agency rules: list of approved framework agreements for all staff
Using accredited framework hosts
With effect from 1 April 2024, as an NHS buyer when selecting procurement framework(s) as their purchasing route(s) for goods, services, or works, NHS England will expect NHS buyers to only procure through a framework operated by an accredited framework host if the relevant goods, services, or works are available via that route.
List of accredited framework hosts
The host organisations who have been accredited are:
- Countess of Chester
- Crown Commercial Service
- East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub
- Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO)
- Efficiency East Midlands
- HealthTrust Europe
- London Procurement Partnership
- Lexica
- NHS Shared Business Services
- NHS Commercial Solutions
- NHS Supply Chain
- NHS Workforce Alliance
- NHS England
- North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative
- North Midlands and Black Country Procurement Group
- Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust
- Pagabo
- Salisbury Foundation Trust
Framework category accreditation
Like the framework host accreditation, there will be a Steering Group established to ensure that each framework sub-category accreditation is completed thoroughly and in a fair manner. The Steering Group will comprise of category and procurement experts from the system.
The outputs and recommendations of the accreditation processes and Steering Group will be ratified by the Central Commercial Function (CCF) Steering Board, which will act as the formal governance route for the scheme (which sits as Intervention 21, under the Influence and Scale section of the Strategic Framework for NHS Commercial: NHS England » Strategic framework for NHS Commercial)
Use of an accredited framework
- Where NHS buyers intend to purchase from a framework, they are expected to use an accredited framework, as and when each framework sub-category is accredited and published on the NHS England website.
- If no accredited framework is available and suitable to use, but an accredited framework host has an otherwise suitable framework, then the NHS buyers will be expected to use a framework hosted by an accredited framework host.
- Where an accredited framework is not selected, NHS buyers must follow the exception process (see below).
- Where a framework is not the selected route to market, NHS buyers can continue to run and award competitive tendering exercises set out in Section 19 of the Procurement Act 2023, which includes the open procedure and competitive flexible procedure. There are also limited circumstances where a contracting authority is not required to use a competitive tendering procedure for a public contract, which includes where a direct award is justified under Sections 41, 42 or 43 of the Procurement Act 2023.
What’s in scope?
All framework agreements operated by one of the 18 accredited host organisations are in scope for this programme and eligible for framework category accreditation, once the framework host is accredited, apart from frameworks pertaining to healthcare services subject to the provider selection regime (PSR).
This includes framework categories that have been previously reviewed and/or endorsed by various NHS England accreditation programmes.
This will also ensure that any previously endorsed frameworks meet the framework accreditation standards, such as Digital procurement recommendations and the Agency recommendations.
Framework agreements include those in relation to the ‘core list’ programme, which was included in the Strategic framework for NHS Commercial.
Frameworks established by the NHS England Medicines Optimisation Team are not in scope for the current phase of the programme. However, NHS England is working to ensure they will be aligned to equivalent standards in due course.
Details of accredited frameworks, accredited framework hosts and the accreditation framework and host standards will be published on the NHS England website (or other appropriate public website) as and when the programme completes each category-by-category framework review.
For any frameworks that are not accredited, NHS England expects active use of those frameworks to cease.
Partnerships, alliances, and joint ventures created for the purpose of purchasing in-scope products and services are in scope for this programme, as defined by the programme description of ‘host’ or ‘framework host’ (see glossary below).
Exception
In considering the scope of the sub-category accreditations, the CCF Steering Board agreed in April 2025, that extending the number of accredited framework hosts further would be counter-productive to the aim of sub-category optimisation, and therefore took the decision that, as at April 2025, no further host organisation accreditations would be undertaken.
It was noted, however, that there are 3 frameworks in operation, that will not be formally assessed or accredited, but due to pre-existing links with NHS England governance and oversight, represent appropriate and suitable unique routes to market. The NHS buying community may continue to use these frameworks:
- National Institute for health and Care Excellence – NICE:
- Electronic & Print Content Framework Agreement
- Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: SE Pharmacy Procurement Service:
- Supply of Dose Banded Compounded Chemotherapy
- Parental Nutrition
- Supply of Lot Specific Homecare Medicine Services; Virology, Oral Chemotherapy, Immunosuppressant (transplant) and Immunomodulator (and other mid-tech) Medicines
- Compounded mAbs
- Homecare: ESA’s (Purchasing, Dispensing and Delivery of Epoetins)
- Non-chemotherapy Compounded Monoclonal Antibodies
- Homecare: Iron Chelators
- North East & Yorkshire NHS Pharmaceutical Purchasing Consortium
- Provision of Homecare Medicines and Services
- Provision of High-Tech Homecare Medicines and Services
- Provision of Low/Med Tech Homecare Medicines Services
Glossary
Accreditation: The completion of the process described for accredited frameworks or accredited hosts.
Accredited framework: A framework which has successfully completed the NHS England Framework Accreditation Scheme; has been awarded green status by the accreditation programme (or by NHS England); and has been included in the list of accredited frameworks published on the NHS England website (or other appropriate public website).
Accredited host: A host which has successfully completed the NHS England host accreditation process; has been awarded green status by the accreditation programme (or by NHS England); and has been included in the list of accredited hosts on the NHS England website (or other appropriate public website).
Framework agreements or frameworks: Defined for the purposes of this guidance to include:
- framework agreements (as defined by Reg 33 (2) of PCR 2015), DPS (as per Reg 34 of PCR 2015)
- frameworks (as per Chapter 4 of the 2023 Procurement Act)
- dynamic markets (as defined in section 34 (8) of the 2023 Procurement Act)
- open frameworks (as defined under section 49 of the 2023 Procurement Act).
For the purposes of this guidance, the term ‘framework’ also includes catalogues and any current or future commercial vehicle, or element of the commercial infrastructure, that facilitates contract call-off.
Framework hosts (also referred to as hosts): Defined for the purposes of this guidance as the organisations which establish a framework, in addition to owning/and promoting the framework; and have launched, concluded and then managed the framework tender process.
They also receive various benefits from those frameworks which could include activity-based incomes, levy, or management fees from suppliers on the framework.
For the purposes of this programme of work, host organisations can be a public or private sector organisation.
NHS England must endorse any new hosts who meet our definition and provide, endorse, establish framework agreements (as defined by the glossary) predominantly to the NHS or if an NHS body wishes to act as a sponsor for any new host.
NHS buyers: Defined for the purposes of this guidance as any NHS organisation which holds an NHS standard contract, (NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts), or commissions services delivered under an NHS standard contract (including integrated care boards and NHS England).
Suppliers: Organisations which supply goods, services, or works to the NHS.
Get in touch
NHS buyers, hosts and other interested parties should email the NHS England Commercial Efficiencies Frameworks mailbox for further information or with any additional questions: england.ceopframeworks@nhs.net.
Further information is also available on the CCF Best Practice Hub via Future NHS, please email england.ccf.ics@nhs.net for support with access. Please note that this is only accessible to NHS employees.
Publication reference: PRN00822