Buying smart
Sunday, July 20th, 2008The current controversy surrounding the purchase of Cervirax rather than Gardasil for the NHS immunisation programme against cervical cancer demonstrates just how poorly procurement is understood and practised by most of the public sector. Penny wise, pound foolish might be another way of putting it.
Not to mention the more controversial SAT marking contract with ETS, a company that is now being described as a Powerpoint warrior. And to think the Office of Government Commerce publicised this procurement as a case study in “best practice”. Then there is Northern Rock to consider along with the the ghost of Equitable Life to display the fallacy of the current fashion for light-touch regulation. (Of-course the private sector fares no better, with any number of monuments to failure littering the landscape.)
Value needs to be calculated by looking at the total cost or benefit of a project, not just the rather inadequately defined attributes initially described. There are likely to be broader disadvantages or benefits stemming from a course of action that will need to be considered by decision-makers.
In the healthcare sector, this attention to the full extent of any issue is our raison-d’etre. Unfortunately this is a lesson that most seem determined to ignore.
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