NHS value-based procurement pilots launched for MedTech

Pilots of value-based procurement guidance for MedTech are taking place at 13 NHS trusts, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed. 

Around £10bn per year is spent on MedTech, but the NHS has previously opted to buy technology based primarily on cost rather than long-term effectiveness.

Value-based procurement is an approach that delivers a reduction in the whole life costs of healthcare with value created from financial, efficiency, patient, and environmental benefits.

Speaking during a panel session at the Parliament & HealthTech Conference on 9 February, Kevin Dodds, director of MedTech and innovation at DHSC, said that the value-based procurement framework, which launched in October 2025 is now active in pilot sites.

“We’re also working with the supply chain and will be doing international frameworks later this year.

“The pilots, by the standard of these things, are going very quickly, because obviously procurement itself has quite a journey to go through. So it’s out there and it’s being tested,” Dodds said.

He added that the intention of the pilots is to prevent “having to reinvent the wheel each time locally”.

“If you’re selling into the NHS and come across scenarios where you want us to look at the whole value, like resilience, the benefits to patients over long-term and pathway redesign, then there’s a commonality to doing that so that you’re not getting different ways of doing it across the country.”

Dodds added that an evaluation of the pilots will take place before making the guidance more widely available.

The government partnered with NHS Supply Chain and the NHS London Procurement Partnership to roll out value-based procurement, which will focus on purchasing technology such as medical devices used in cardiology and vascular treatment.

Andrew New, chief executive at NHS Supply Chain, told the conference that setting out the value for what is important in procurement decisions is “not a new thing”.

“All we’ve done is we’ve structured it now to say, actually, there are lots of different elements here that are important and we’ve got a mentality and a methodology to weigh one up against the other, and understand what truly matters in a decision we’re making,” he said.

Dr Andrew Stradling, chief medical officer at NHS London Procurement Partnership, warned that price alone cannot determine value.

“If we’re just looking at the price of the widget that one organisation buys, then value-based healthcare dies here, we have to be much more intelligent-brained and thoughtful about it.”

He added: “If value is outcome over cost, then cost is pretty definable. Outcomes less so.”

Rachel Power, chief executive at the Patients Association, questioned whether patient perspectives are fully embedded “to make sure that we’re designing and delivering technology that works for all”.

“If we’re really going to optimise the outcomes that you’ve all talked about, which excite me, then we need to get to those people in the most deprived areas in the United Kingdom,” she said.

Rachel Power will be keynote speaker at Digital Health Rewired, 24-25 March at the NEC, Birmingham. Register here