Director of Procurement and Contracting

Job description

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust is the only acute hospital provider in the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System (ICS), which is a system of health and care partners working together for our local population.

Within Mid and South Essex there are 149 GP practices, operating from over 200 sites, forming 27 Primary Care Networks and one Ambulance Trust. There are also three main community and mental health service providers who work together through a community collaborative.

We collaborate with other valuable partners, including three Healthwatch organisations, nine voluntary and community sector organisations and three top tier local authorities, with seven district, borough and city councils, as well as our local universities.

Job overview

Here is an exciting opportunity for you to join us as a Director of Procurement and Contracting. This is a senior position that will require finely tuned business skills to deal with the many challenges faced by this new role in support of MSE group and external customers.

The principal role of the Director will be to provide leadership, commercial insight, and stakeholder interface in order to grow the new procurement service. It is envisaged that revised organisation will not only provide services to MSE Group but will be position MSE at the heart of the region, providing procurement services to others and support the drive for regional cross working.

As a consequence, it is essential that the Servi ce is cost effective and remains closely aligned to the business priorities and requirements of not only MSE but also potential Partner organisations. Not only will the service need to deliver traditional support in areas such as cost improvement, but it will also seek to drive new opportunities from leveraging commercial insight strategic partnerships. These will help to deliver long term benefits to the system.

The Director will ensure that the expenditure are each Partner complies with all statutory and mandatory regulations governing procurement rules within the NHS, including the Trust's own Standing Financial Instructions along with mandatory procurement legislation.

Main duties of the job

• You are expected to influence all third party spend within the Trust to ensure value for money. This will also include providing procurement expertise to support areas traditionally out of scope such as Pharmacy drug expenditure.
• An important and significant aspect of this role is to build and maintain enduring, effective and business-like working relations with suppliers, consultants, clinicians and senior managers across the group so that customer service levels are set and maintained along with contributing to challenging year on year cost improvement programmes.
• The Director will be responsible for providing a proactive procurement service to the Care Group or Corporate Division(s), leading a management team of senior procurement experts to deliver both strategic advice and operational support.
• Be recognised a professional procurement lead for the Trust on high profile, high risk procurements. To lead on negotiations of complex, high value contracts for the procurement of capital and consumable items.
• Drive the development, management and delivery of the Trust's procurement cost improvement program, operational metrics and corporate reporting.
• Responsible for the implementation and development Category and Contract Management in the new procurement service.
• Ensure that the Department operates within set budget

Working for our organisation

Our ambition is to deliver excellent local and specialist services, to improve the health and well being of our patients, and provide a vibrant place for staff to develop, innovate and build careers.

We aim to make the most of our skills and experiences so we can become the best we can be. As one organisation we will recruit the finest and retain more specialist staff due to more employment opportunities across our Trust.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Are you looking for an exciting role using your unique qualities, then we want to hear from you.

For full details about this varied and rewarding role, please see attached job description.

We look forward to your application.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Educated to Master degree level in Procurement related profession, including logistics/supply chain or equivalent experience.
• Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS)

Desirable criteria

• Current driving licence
• Member of the institute of logistics

Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria

• Considerable procurement and logistics experience in working within a relevant procurement environment (not immediately necessary within NHS).
• Experience of business development and tender processes
• Experience and successful track record of managing change and in managing significant and complex multi-million pound projects where there is a substantial investment in new medical equipment and IT systems.
• Experience of developing complex contractual agreements
• Experience in producing and understanding business plans, reports, contracts and service level agreements
• Experience of establishing and negotiating strategic contracts with consultants and suppliers, and the management of complex commercial relationships.
• Expert knowledge of procurement law and being capable of applying legal requirements.
• Minimum of 10 years direct experience within procurement of which 3 years of the last 5 years must be within the NHS acute sector at senior management level.
• Significant previous experience of managing a procurement function within a complex organisation
• Proven experience in the areas of: Project management; negotiation; contract management; cost and price management; and procurement legislation
• Experience of logistics, inventory control and supply chain management

Communication skills

Essential criteria

• Ability to clearly communicate finance and non finance issues
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills to enable effective partnering working at director level.
• Ability to produce business critical written documentation such as Business Cases/Category Strategies.
• Ability to engage with stakeholders to shape requirements in line with existing procurement regulations
• Ability to present complex information to wide audiences with authority and credibility

Please be aware as per the new Immigration guidelines we cannot sponsor candidates with a salary (full time or pro Rata) under the current minimum threshold.

Please note, the selection processes at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust are in place to ensure we recruit candidates with the right skills and values, please be advised that the use of AI in applications are monitored. We remain vigilant against candidates who misuse these tools to generate an application that doesn't accurately reflect their skills, and you will be required to declare on your application if AI has been used before submitting your application.

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