My son just text me from work. He is a Doctor at a big Hospital, his ward has just purchased 30 A4 clipboards. (Amazon price £2 each) So the question is how much did our NHS with its buying power pay for the 30 clipboards

£450.00? £15 each If it's anything like schools when it comes to public money firms just seem to think they can charge what they like.

£60. Where do I collect my prize from?

Nearly right, I asked the same question to a friend who was in education, and she got the answer spot on

It was £500

My son said he will pack up medicine and sell clipboards instead

Obscene.

On its last legs ya know...

Mugs

Sad thing is, in this day and age, where every penny the NHS has needs to work for it, there are STILL businesses out there willingly and knowingly bending it over.

You’d also think that there wouldn’t be an individual in the employ of the NHS who would sign this off....how does this get through?

I presume this is part of some sort of " Private Finance Initiative " agreement ?

Seems to me the only initiative being employed, is by the selling company....

There really is absolutely no excuse from either the seller or the buyer.

I would expect that NHS have a central purchasing function that buys for all or groups of hospitals. They will probably have a minimum value charge to stop individual locations constantly making small purchases. Most of the £500 will be retained in the NHS.

This was the same in education when I was involved. Basically the principle is that only money people can be trusted with money; in those days, it was any spending over £5 had to go through a form in quadruplicate, via the local education office and the Preston education office, rather than coming out of petty cash.

Quite literally, a man who could be trusted to be head of a school with 1,000 pupils, could not be trusted with enough cash to buy a kettle for the staff room.

There was something even worse a few years back in Bristol, I think it was. A consultant was supended for a couple of days because he was suspected of not paying for his croutons in his soup in the staff canteen. Three major operations had to be cancelled. As if it matters - a good consultant can be a kleptomaniac for all I care.

Sunny Cornwall wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:35 am

I would expect that NHS have a central purchasing function that buys for all or groups of hospitals. They will probably have a minimum value charge to stop individual locations constantly making small purchases. Most of the £500 will be retained in the NHS.

If Amazon don't mind selling 30 clipboards at a time, why should the NHS object to them doing it?

bobinho wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:26 am

Sad thing is, in this day and age, where every penny the NHS has needs to work for it, there are STILL businesses out there willingly and knowingly bending it over.

You’d also think that there wouldn’t be an individual in the employ of the NHS who would sign this off....how does this get through?

Brown envelopes.