The Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill has been laid before Senedd Cymru.

The Bill intends to reform how certain NHS health care services are procured in Wales and bring forward primary legislative powers and enable Welsh Ministers to create a new procurement regime for NHS health service procurement.

The UK Department of Health and Social Care is proposing to introduce a new regime for the procurement of NHS health services in England, known as the Provider Selection Regime (PSR). The goal of this is to improve patient outcomes by removing unnecessary bureaucracy from the process of working with independent healthcare providers and encouraging collaboration and partnerships.

The PSR will give NHS England more flexibility to procure and arrange independent health services and may have an impact on NHS Wales’s ability to maintain and secure health services in Wales when working with independent providers.

The bill aims to ensure that health service procurement in Wales is not disadvantaged as a result of the PSR in England and will aim to provide a supportive mechanism to maintain the current procurement ‘level playing field’ for NHS health services between England and Wales. The Bill will retain the ability for NHS Wales to commission independent health service providers on a co-compliant and collaborative basis.

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