Value-based NHS procurement: why peer networks matter more than expert ratings

By Oxford Insights

In the world of government digital transformation, there is a recurring temptation: the urge to be the arbiter of truth.

When we begin a project to help public servants make better decisions, our first instinct might be to build a definitive library, with experts advising frontline users exactly what is best. This top-down approach is compelling because it feels efficient and authoritative. 

But, as we recently discovered during a 14-week Alpha project with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the NHS does not work that way.

Beyond the price tag

The project in question was MedTech Compass and the context will be familiar to anyone in the UK public sector: procurement. For years, NHS medical technology (medtech) has been bought primarily based on price. This is understandable in a budget-constrained environment, but it ignores long-term value: patient outcomes, return on investment, and the environmental sustainability of products.

The DHSC’s goal was to shift toward “value-based procurement” and the original vision for Compass was clear: a central service for side-by-side product comparisons, drawing from trusted data from central bodies like NICE.

Although the solution we initially envisioned was essentially a “best-buy guide,” the more we spoke to the people actually doing the buying, the more we realised that authoritative data was only half the story.

Bringing informal networks into the open

After seven rounds of research with 51 participants – from senior procurement leads to frontline clinicians – we identified a pattern: some people’s networks open doors that others just don’t have.

Experienced procurement leads rarely rely solely on a central database. When they want to know if a new piece of kit works, they call a colleague in another Trust. They ask for the real-world trial data that may not have been shared externally – giving more credence to first-hand accounts than formal assessments. 

Without those informal networks, junior staff and those in smaller Trusts are often forced to rely purely on price tags or on dense, clinical PDFs that are not available for all products.

Our research showed that providing a single expert rating (like a gold or silver tier) wouldn’t bridge this gap in social capital. Instead, we needed a solution that would draw on the full breadth of existing knowledge within the NHS itself, making it more visible and more accessible to those who need it. 

From expert database to peer network

This insight changed everything. We pivoted the strategy, and instead of building a tool to only extract and deliver expert data from external bodies, we designed a platform which centres peer-to-peer recommendations.

The result is a directory which helps users find real-world evaluative evidence submitted by their colleagues. If a procurement lead in Liverpool can see that a team in Bristol has already trialled a product and has the documentation to prove it, then the gap begins to close.

Decisions worth repeating

The NHS is not short of knowledge, but knowledge that stays in one place is only half as useful as knowledge that travels. Procurement decisions are already being made across the health service every day, and MedTech Compass is built on a simple idea: make those decisions easier to learn from, and make the good ones easier to repeat.

Grid photo by César Badilla Miranda on Unsplash