In July 2007, Mrs Alyson Brett was appointed CEO of NHS Commercial Solutions, a not-for-profit Group Procurement Organisation which has made frontline savings for the NHS in excess of £160 million.

Mrs Brett is also a founder member and President of the European Health Public Procurement Alliance (EHPPA) established in 2012 to promote the benefits of international benchmarking, sharing of best practice and public procurement collaboration across Europe.

Prior to joining NHS Commercial Solutions, Alyson held a number of strategic and operational senior roles in the NHS over the last 36 years, is a graduate of Kings College/London School of Economics and holds an MBA in Business Studies from Reading University.

Mrs Brett believes that the development of strategic and collaborative partnerships in procurement is key in delivering quality, cost, and service improvements to support the transformation of healthcare delivery.

Presentation Synopsis
How Group Procurement Organisations (GPO’s) can support healthcare transformation
In this session the importance of collaboration in delivering mutually beneficial outcomes in healthcare systems will be explored:

• Examining the global issues faced by healthcare systems from a procurement and supply chain perspective and how this impacts on the NHS in England
• The new procurement landscape in the NHS – procurement transformation and what that means to collaborative procurement organisations
• The responses that procurement,in particular, Group Procurement Organisations (GPOs) can take to support whole healthcare system transformation
• The role and importance of partnerships and networks in delivering a new procurement landscape
• How GPOs can help shape and influence the new procurement landscape and deliver leading edge commercial and procurement solutions
• Case study examples from NHS Commercial Solutions illustrating innovative approaches and procurement practice

Presentation Synopsis
International comparisons in procurement - is it really just about price?”
In this session experience and lessons learned in comparing and collaborating on an international scale will be examined:

• The challenges faced across health economies
• Follow the journey that international procurement collaboration has taken in Europe
• The establishment of EHPPA and the work of its members and direction
• What to benchmark in order to deliver effective procurement and cost effective healthcare
• Is it all about price or is there an added dimension?
• Case Study examples in international benchmarking