Procurement of clinical healthcare services
The procurement reforms within the Act will enable the removal of the current procurement rules which apply for NHS and public health service commissioners when arranging clinical healthcare services e.g. hospital or community services. The Act provides a power to create, via regulations, separate procurement measures for these services. It is our intention to use these powers to remove the procurement of health care services for the purposes of the health service from scope of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The Act provisions also repeal Section 75 of the 2012 Act and the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013.
	The Act enables the development of new measures for NHS and public health procurement, informed by public consultation, to reduce bureaucracy on commissioners and providers alike, and give decision makers the flexibility to use competitive tendering where it adds value.
	These reforms will generally only apply to the procurement of clinical healthcare services. The procurement of non-clinical services, such as professional services or clinical consumables, will remain subject to wider rules governing public procurement. The power does, however, provide an ability to make provision for mixed procurements in the regime, where a contract involves a mixture of health care services and other services or goods – for example, if a health care service is being commissioned but in the interests of providing joined up care some social care services are also commissioned as part of a mixed procurement.
	NHS England have previously consulted on the proposal to replace the current legislation with a new provider selection regime, and over 70% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with this proposal. The Department of Health and Social Care launched a further consultation on the details of the policy on 21 February 2022.