HSJ Partnership Awards 2024: Best Legal Services Partnership with the NHS

Last Thursday evening, over 1,000 attendees gathered in London to celebrate and recognise the importance of healthcare collaboration at the HSJ Partnership Awards. The HSJ Partnership Awards provide a platform to shape the future of innovative, integrated health and care systems by showcasing effective collaborations with the NHS.

We are proud to be part of the team to win the ‘Best Legal Services Partnership with the NHS’ award, alongside the West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT). This award specifically shines a light on NHS projects that have utilised legal services to get results, whilst delivering value for money.

The winning team included Hempsons, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS FT & Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust for the procurement of a pathology managed service contract across three trusts. The three trusts collaborated on a pan-pathology managed service contract, whose potential value of £475m makes it one of the largest contracts in this sector. We supported and advised, as a core member of the project team, on the procurement process (April 2021–present) to successfully deliver a single managed service contract award across the three trusts.

The contract will deliver £30m in savings for the managed service element and a further £30m+ in efficiencies that the network will realise from the managed service support.

Andrew Daly, partner and head of procurement, said: “I was thrilled when my contact from the three Trusts approached me to suggest that we submit an entry for this award. This project has demonstrated how legal services and NHS teams can work in close partnership to achieve positive outcomes. This was a real team effort”.

Ben Roberts, West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT) Finance Lead, said: “This is a wonderful achievement, and I am so proud of WYAAT, the Trusts, and Hempsons for achieving a financial saving of this scale. This project will change procurement processes within the NHS going forward”.

Please get in touch with our specialist procurement team if there are any projects that we can support you with.