NHS England has recently published the ‘NHS Social Value Playbook’, which provides guidance on applying social value in the procurement of NHS goods and services, including assistive technology services.
The guidance was created following internal feedback which highlighted that more support was needed to develop the maturity of the NHS’ approach to social value. NHS buying teams asked for help in question setting, evaluation, and contract management, while suppliers asked for clearer questions related their skills and expertise.
The guidance sets out practical steps at each stage of the procurement or commissioning lifecycle. It emphasises the flexibility of including Fighting Climate Change as a core requirement to the contract deliverables or as social value theme for suppliers to deliver above and beyond the core offer. It also outlines how creating key performance indicators (KPIs) is critical and provides examples of how to do this.
According to the playbook, this is what social value means to the NHS: “Applying social value provides NHS commissioning and buying teams the unique opportunity to improve patients’ lives and the communities they live in through how we buy and the way we manage contracts.
“Social value in procurement drives the supply chain to deliver additional social, economic, and environmental benefits alongside their commercial commitments.”
The guidance aligns with the 2025 updates to UK Government’s Social Value Model. More broadly, the playbook works in tandem with the government’s sustainability ambitions and goals to reduce health inequalities detailed in the ‘NHS 10 Year Health Plan for England’.
The new playbook highlights the positive impact social value can have on health inequalities and outcomes, setting out examples for common areas of spend. It asks commercial colleagues to collaborate with their commissioning, clinical, and operational counterparts on social value and sustainability from the outset of the business planning process to ensure the themes and questions meet the needs of the patients or users of the goods or services.
One of the key messages from the playbook is that social value themes should be considered early in the planning process in collaboration with commissioners, operational leads, clinicians, and suppliers to support delivery of broader NHS challenges and priorities. It also states that pre-market engagement is key to ensuring proportionate and relevant questions.
Importantly, the guidance underlines that fighting climate change, effective stewardship of the environment, or clean energy can be included as a core requirement or a social value theme. It adds that modern slavery should be included as a core requirement where there is a medium or high risk.
In addition, the guidance highlights that creating social value key performance indicators (KPIs) within the contract is critical to assuring and measuring delivery.
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