Royal College of Anaesthetists – Testimonial

The Royal College of Anaesthetists had never had a dedicated procurement resource until Margaret Newson started with them in August 2023. They currently require procurement support for two days a week and this has involved tendering their valuable marketing sponsorship contract, increasing the amount of yearly income to the College. In addition, several audio visual projects for their lecture theatre have been procured with savings achieved against budget. Margaret is working to improve their current procurement processes which ranges from the production of an approved supplier list, monitoring high risk strategic contracts using the Creditsafe facility and writing purchasing guidance for the College’s budget holders.

Margaret Newson, Senior Procurement Manager says of her work for Ensemble Purchasing:
"Being the sole procurement professional in each organisation, we often find ourselves fulfilling several different roles from acting as a head of procurement by creating procurement strategies to advising budget holders on managing their contracts. This makes for a varied working life interacting at all levels of seniority and carrying out a variety of tasks on a daily basis.

“The majority of my procurement activity is tendering and this has involved some of the largest spend contracts a member might have, including HR/Payroll and virtual learning software systems.

“I started my procurement career over 30 years ago in mobile communications with O2 and most of my university procurement experience has been as Head of Procurement at LSE for 11 years. I qualified in 1992 as a member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement. I joined Ensemble eight years ago and have worked for a number of clients in that time."

Mark Blaney, Finance and Resources Director, Royal College of Anaesthetists says:"
We approached Ensemble Purchasing as we required professional procurement advice on numerous projects and improvement on our current processes. Being a member of Ensemble, RCoA benefits from a professional procurement service, two days a week on a part-time basis, without paying higher consultancy rates or 20% in VAT. 

“All tenders are being managed by Margaret through Mercell’s e-tendering portal at https://uk.eu-supply.com/ which is provided as part of the Ensemble service, thereby freeing up RCoA personnel’s time.

“We are grateful that Margaret joined our team, allowing us to tap into her expertise where we had a gap.”

Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) - Buying Actor Agency Services and Mannequins

Ensuring that your operation is painless, and your recovery is as quick as possible, the role of the anaesthetist is important in many of our lives. Training these vital medical professionals is the role of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA), who are the professional body in the UK that train circa 1400 every year, both at a junior and senior level across the country.

Practical examinations are held in person at the College in a simulated clinical environment supported by professional actors who vary in genders, ages and ethnicities to role play patients, family members and other healthcare professionals. The incumbent actor agency had been providing the service for a number of years.  Through benchmarking with other agencies and negotiations, the service was proven to be competitive, with booking fees being 16% lower than other agencies resulting in better value for money for the College’s members.

In addition, the College uses simulation resuscitation mannequins to assess the clinical skills of trainees across various clinical scenarios. This technology is increasingly being used in medical education for the acquisition of clinical skills, without fear of harm to patients and preparing trainee anaesthetists for real patient contact.

The RCoA was able to use the professional procurement resource from Ensemble Purchasing to initiate a tender process for the role play actors. This necessitated drafting invitation to tender documentation, sourcing suitable suppliers and managing the tender process through the e-tendering portal.

Alternative product models of the resuscitation mannequins were considered, but only one specific model from a sole supplier in the UK could meet the stringent technical requirements of the medical clinicians and provide on-going technical support. The Ensemble Senior Procurement Manager benchmarked the pricing of each mannequin against an NHS framework agreement, assuring the College that they were receiving value for money by achieving a cost per mannequin which was £50k below the list price.”

As a result of engaging Ensemble’s services on a part time basis, the College was able to gain assurance that they have suppliers who provide vital services, meet the requirements of the College, and attain value for money through negotiations and the benchmarking of goods and services.

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance – HR & Payroll Services System

A world leading Conservatoire and founding member of Ensemble Purchasing, needed to replace its current Human Resources Management & Payroll System. The existing system was inefficient, requiring significant manual and often double inputting, and the incumbent supplier was withdrawing maintenance and technical support within twelve months. The new system needed to comply with regulatory reporting standards and produce mandatory reports.

Following the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and within a tight budget, the Senior Procurement Manager supported key stakeholders in engaging with the market and benchmarking similar reference sites within the Higher Education Sector. This enabled the Finance and HR Team to develop a detailed and robust specification and pricing model.

Through clarifications and negotiations with shortlisted potential suppliers, the solution was optimised to enable a flexible approach to the number of system users and the number of consultancy days commissioned. This ensured that the new solution will be delivered within budget over the next two years. The new system will also integrate the payroll with reporting and pension requirements.

University of Roehampton – Student Records System

A student records system (SRS) is probably the most important, strategic, and expensive IT system used in a middle to large size university. It is a link between several different departments, including finance; student records; student admissions; and everything else linked to the student life at university and beyond; from the starting point when the student enquires about joining the university through to the student completing their studies and beyond.

Before starting this project, the University of Roehampton’s legacy system was slow and inefficient, and the incumbent provider had notified the University that the current system was approaching the end of its product life. Once budgets were allocated to this project, a detailed market engagement was carried out including discussions with other Ensemble Purchasing members to fully understand the changes in the market since it was previously tendered.

There are only a limited number of companies in the UK that can provide an SRS that can fulfil the needs of the University of Roehampton over the long term. We undertook a benchmarking exercise to ascertain the relative benefits and advantages of each software solution over several months. At the same time, we engaged with a number of universities to understand how their SRS works for them, the challenges they had in the implementation, and the lessons learned.

Since this contract was above the procurement threshold, we run a further competition through the APUC framework, which enabled us to secure a number of bids in a legally compliant manner.

The tender evaluation panel consisted of a cross functional working group from a diverse set of stakeholders including registry, ICT, marketing, finance and members of the senior management team. 

Following the initial tender evaluation and subsequent tender clarifications, a supplier was appointed. The benefits of the new system are increased functionality and integration with other systems.

Other benefits were avoiding double entries of student records and a solution that was provided within the allocated budget.

Royal College of Art (RCA) – Fit Out for New Building and Associated Works
(Former Ensemble Member)

A world-renowned conservatoire of the arts needed to expand its presence in London. It acquired a new site in South London which needed to be extensively developed to meet the needs of both the undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This building was seen as a flagship construction to solidify the College’s status of being one of most prestigious art colleges in the world. The Senior Procurement Manager was responsible for working and coordinating with a range of different stakeholders, both internal and external, on tender packages to deliver the successful fit out of the building in line with public procurement regulations. The overall value of works being circa £6.5m.

Tenders issued under this package included services for a quantity surveyor, furniture provider, soft landscape works outside the building (advertised through the central government’s e-tendering platform in line with public procurement regulations). The main fit out tender itself, valued at £5m, was run through a compliant framework route. The Senior Procurement Manager worked closely with the RCA appointed Director and Project Manager to suggest a route to market to ensure the project was successfully delivered on time and to budget, whilst achieving the high standard of finish that the RCA were looking for from the outset.