Speaking to CIPS, Peter Akid retired Director of Procurement at NHS Shared Business Services said “One of the key things going forward is contract management. We need to start thinking about the management of that contract over its lifetime of three to five years as we’re actually writing the contract, so that some of the ongoing savings can be realised down the track.”

Akid said the NHS and other public sector bodies were reluctant to pay for good contract management.

“If you stuck a couple of million quid in a hedge fund you’d expect that you’ve got an absolute top professional managing that money, and you would pay the [management] fee. Yet we stick millions into contractual arrangements and then put the contracts on the shelves and hope it all works out OK,” he said.

At ContractsWise we’re delighted that NHS Western Sussex Foundation Trust and SCW Commissioning Support Unit have already embraced the importance of contract management and are using our software to help them.
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