FabSwingers.com forum: Procurement - a significant way to a way out (?)

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Am ex-forces and ex-NHS professional. Seeing the cost of military equipment, medical equipment, pharmacueticals etc over the years has never ceased to amaze me. Those who make it - and the government departments who 'make deals' with business agreements on the ludicrous amounts and itme should cost are ruining the country and have been for decades. The ACTUAL cost of making such items is often exceeded by thousands of percent, paid for by us 'plebs'. How about the powers that be have aloooong, hard look at just how much we pay for such items and the 'handshaking' business deals they create that all with? That way, personnel would be properly equipped. meciations could easily be provided to all at a fraction of the cost and there would be a lot more coffers available to the UK economy as a whole. Procurement in the Forces and NHS are often overlooked, but they're truly shocking. Rant over

lol

P.S: I recall once seeing a small, mechanical item, made in the UK as a helicopter part being made, with profit by the UK factory at the time (late 80's) for about £30. BUT they couldn't sell it directly to the Forces - instead a trade agreement meant that they had to sell the finished, ready to use item to a certain French aeronautical company, to sell BACK to the UK for about 400 quid...teh same has happened and continues to happen in the NHS...

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

I know exactly what you mean, and agree totally.

The whole system of "authorised suppliers" and "preferred suppliers" is wide open to abuse.

As for operational inefficiency...

I once saw a situation in the NHS where a machine was needed for a project. There was ONE supplier of that machine in the entire world. The entire project was based around it. It still had to be put out to tender. Months of waiting around, meetings, paperwork... Ridiculous.

Anyone with half a brain would say ok, we need a machine for this project. There is one type available from one company. Are we ok with the cost and delivery time etc? Yes? Right, let's order it.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Hi there Tiger Feet. Sorry, was off fab for a couple of days and missed your response. I know what you mean - it's impossible to every reasonably quantify, for various reasons, but both you, I (and undoubtedly millions more in the Forces or NHS etc) see such ludicrous, over the top 'payments' as an absolutely and unnecessary expense to the public purse. The items bought at reasonable prices, withough hand-shaking, trade-agreements (!) etc I reckon there would be no problem here with everyone being able to get life-saving pharmaceuticals and the Forces would be equipped t a reasonable cost - possibly saving up to (v est) 15% of public expenditure (ie: given if spend on 'Defence' is 20% of public expenditure.) Somehow, I can't see any political party (ie: buusiness-lachys) trying to address this one though - as the businessmen wouldn't like it

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

It's the same in all aspects of business as soon as 'authorised suppliers' get set up. It's a license to print money.

We both work in the public sector and see it all the time. Recently my team needed new equipment that is only made by one company. I made an enquiry with that company and got a good price from their rep. I was stopped from ordering it by our finance team and instead had to go through our authorised supplier who didn't actually stock it. You can probably guess what happened next. Yep, the authorised supplier went to the same rep and ordered it and then put a 5% mark up on it and sold it to us. What an absolute rip off!

And we wonder why we're in so much debt as a nation!

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