National Procurement and Logistics

We are NHS Scotland’s (NHSS’s) national procurement service. Providing Commercial and Logistics services to Scotland Health and Social Care services. Our national team also provides expert advice and support to our Health Boards (HBs) on procurement matters, working closely with colleagues in HB procurement teams.

Our commercial services provide high quality and best value arrangements for the medicines, products, food and equipment used within our hospitals and health services. This ensures our patients can access the best possible treatment from our NHSS. Our contracts and services cover the majority of NHSS needs.

Items such as:

• specialist medicines
• new hospital wards
• state of the art imaging equipment
• from bed linen to syringes

As Scotland’s largest procurement organisation, we manage over £1.4 billion in national contracts. We assist NHSS in spending effectively. This releases more resources into frontline services and patient care. Working together with HB colleagues, we have made savings in excess of £270 million over the past 5 years.

We are also Scotland's biggest public sector logistics operation providing NHSS’s National Distribution Service (NDS). Each year we procure and distribute millions of vital supplies required for patient care. Our three warehouses stock over 9000 product lines. Every week we deliver over 80,000 items to hospital wards, departments and community centres. Supplying circa 80% of the products used every day in our hospitals. Our NDS also hosts Scotland’s national pandemic stockpile. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we have provided the majority of PPE required across Health and Social Care.