Procurement

The Scottish Ambulance Service has its own procurement team based in Edinburgh. The Procurement Team buys a wide range of Service-specific goods and services. This includes items that support frontline patient care, such as medical equipment, ambulances, staff uniforms and air ambulance services. In addition, the Service purchases goods and services that support and maintain the organisation's infrastructure such as communications and IT equipment and services, property related services and various professional services. (These examples are intended to be illustrative, not an exhaustive list).

For more generic products used in common with other parts of the NHS, the Service collaborates with the rest of the NHS in Scotland and buys from contracts awarded by National Procurement. The Service also uses other Scottish or UK framework contracts where available to achieve best value in line with the recommendations of the McClelland Report published in 2006, for example Procurement Scotland or Buying Solutions

Contracts worth in excess of £50,000 are advertised on Public Contracts Scotland and can also be viewed on the Service’s Buyer Profile. All contracts above the EU thresholds are also advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) in addition to these websites.

Procurement policy

The Scottish Ambulance Service buys goods and services by competition wherever possible in line with government policy and the relevant legislation. The procurement process complies with the Service’s Standing Financial Instructions and the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

The Service seeks to achieve best value for the items that most closely meet its requirements. Contract award decisions are based on the assessment of a range of evaluation criteria specific to the goods or services being purchased. For contracts above the EU thresholds, these criteria and the relevant weightings are included in the contract notice and tender documentation.

The Service has signed up to the Scottish Government's Suppliers' Charter.

eProcurement

The Scottish Ambulance Service has been using the eProcurement Scotland system (PECOS) since 2003. The system has proved popular with users and has improved efficiency in the ordering process. The Service has spent in excess of £200m through the system to date. The Service is keen to develop closer linkages with key suppliers to obtain maximum benefit to both parties through developments such as cXML ordering, tailored punch-out sites and eInvoicing.

Further information on PECOS is available from the eProcurement Scotland website.

eTendering

The Service implemented the eProcurement Scotland eTendering system (eSourcing Scotland) in 2008, for use in making pre-qualification questionnaires and tenders available to suppliers. For further information on eSourcing Scotland is available on the Scottish Procurement Directorate website.

Environmental procurement policy

The Scottish Ambulance Service has an environmental procurement policy and an annual action plan for improving its environmental performance with regard to procurement.

Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

The Service must comply with its obligations under the Act, which means we must consider each request for information on a case by case basis. However, we are aware that suppliers may wish to protect information which is commercially sensitive to them. The Act does provide a number of exceptions concerning trade secrets, for example, and the Service will seek to rely on these where it is appropriate to do so. More information for suppliers is included in our tender documentation.