NHS Improvement in England has reported on progress with Nationally Contracted Products (NCP) programme

Nationally Contracted Products (NCP) is a program of centralized procurement of commonly used simple devices in the NHS in England. NHS Supply Chain makes procurement on behalf of all trusts and makes limited number of products available in its catalogue for order by individual trusts.

NHS Supply Chain makes selection on the basis on recommendations from the NHS Clinical Evaluation Team. As of now, 6 product types were evaluated by the NHS Clinical Evaluation Team, including:

• Blunt drawing up devices with and without filter
• Examination gloves
• Film and film islands
• Gelling fibres
• Open suction catheters and suction tubing
• Syringes - hypodermic luer slip

Currently, the Team is working on the clinical review of under pads.

In 2017, the following products are planned for centralized procurement:

• nitrile exam gloves (6 Newton)
• barrier cream and barrier film
• medical pulp urinals
• general purpose patient dry wipes
• medical pulp bowls
• blunt filter needle
• medical pulp bedpans
• 10ml IV Luer Slip syringes
• vinyl examination gloves: non-pigmented and pigmented
• blunt fill needle
• medical pulp trays
• non-woven island dressings

The first products for centralized contracting in 2017 are couch rolls and blunt-fill syringes. NHS Improvement reports projected savings from centralized procurement of only these two types of products of about £2 mln.

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