Neil Hind is a senior procurement and transformation leader, with extensive experience across the NHS, and central and local governments. Operating at Director level, he specialises in strategic procurement, contract management, programme delivery, shared services, carbon reduction and social value.
With full lifecycle PRINCE2 project expertise, Neil has a proven track record of delivering complex procurement and change programmes. These programmes have achieved measurable efficiency savings and sustainable outcomes. MBA qualified, PRINCE2 certified and MCIPS accredited, he combines strong commercial acumen with the ability to engage stakeholders at all levels to drive successful delivery.
Neil explores the growing tension between the NHS’s escalating commercial demands and its rapidly shrinking procurement workforce. Organisations across the system are facing financial pressures, incuding workforce reductions, and major restructuring. Wihtin this context, Neil examines whether current procurement capacity and capability are fit for purpose. And, crucially, how they should be funded. Neil highlights the risks of defaulting to traditional resourcing debates, the hidden costs of underinvestment, and the emerging practices of leading NHS organisations that are redefining how procurement delivers value in an increasingly challenging environment.
When Rising Expectations Meet Shrinking Teams: The Realities of NHS Procurement in 2026
For anybody working in the NHS space at the moment, like me, your LinkedIn feed is probably full of people confirming their redundancy, voluntary or otherwise. Here are just some of the pressures driving that trend:
- ICBs are trying to balance their books from this April
- CSUs are set to close next year
- Trusts are reducing their corporate services budgets back to pre covid baselines
- And of course vacancy controls and recruitment freezes remain widespread.
This was confirmed in a recent HSJ report that stated:
- “Staff in “central functions” – which include HR, finance, IT and administrative roles – fell 2.6 per cent (2,990 FTE – from 112,916 to 109,935) over the same period.
- Managers dropped by 416, from 26,751 to 26,335 (1.6 per cent).”
Source: NHS sheds thousands of managers and support staff | News | Health Service Journal
These reductions disproportionately affect the very commercial, analytical, and leadership capacity procurement now depends on. And this is before the further reductions expected in 26/27.
At the same time, procurement is being asked to deliver more than ever. These two forces are colliding and the system is not designed for it.
On the “to-do list” are:
- Financial recovery
- Productivity gains
- Delivery of elements of the 10-Year Plan
- Net zero
- Social value
- Supplier resilience
- Value based procurement
- And not forgetting the NHS Commercial Framework
This raises a difficult but unavoidable question:
Do we actually have the right procurement capacity and capability? And if we do, how are we supposed to fund it?
A Market Flooding with “Available Resource”?
So on paper, capacity should be improving (but noting that many of those taking voluntary redundancy may be restricted by claw back terms in the healthcare sector for at least 6 months, if not 12 for more senior resources).
But availability is not the same as deployable capacity and will this be the capability that is much needed?
Much of this resource is often generalist rather than outcome-focused. A lot of these released resource may also be more commissioning focused than procurement, but in many cases these skills can be easily transferable to wider commercial roles. It is also likely to be experienced in governance, but less so in execution under pressure.
The NHS risks reabsorbing capacity that looks experienced on paper but cannot deliver the outcomes now required.
The Mismatch Between Expectations and Reality
Procurement teams are now expected to:
- Deliver more ambitious CIPS-aligned savings at scale
- Support net zero and social value outcomes
- Lead on complex clinical and workforce-related sourcing decisions
- Enable system working, while protecting local delivery plus absorbing additional workload from reduced central support.
By this, I mean the shape, mix, and funding of procurement capacity no longer aligns to the outcomes being demanded of it.
There is also a continued push for shared procurement services that should eventually result in a transformational change in procurement delivery. However, this will bring uncertainty for staff during the process, a change in ways of working for the trusts impacted and a diversion for senior leaders in managing the implementation.
This is all while running with less permanent capacity and higher scrutiny on cost. It could be argued that this is not a workload issue. It’s a capacity design problem, the shape and capability of procurement capacity does not fit the demands being placed on it.
So how do we find the right resource capacity and capability that are much needed?
Permanent, Interim, or Consultancy: The Wrong Debate?
This debate often starts in the wrong place. Too many resource conversations default to delivery type rather than the outcomes needed.
Permanent roles are obviously lower cost on paper, but are often slow to recruit. Assuming approval to recruit is granted, they can be difficult to flex, and are often constrained by pay bands that can’t compete with other sectors. There is also a real risk of burnout in teams with more being asked from fewer resources.
Interims (IR35 inside) are often highly scrutinised, increasingly unattractive to senior talent, and often used as “gap fillers” rather than delivery accelerators. They can however be quick to deploy and a route to bring in specific skills, and capacity, that are needed.
Consultancies are often seen as expensive, but are increasingly willing to work on risk and reward models and outcome-based fees making this more attractive to the client side. They can often deploy blended teams rather than standalone resources.
The real question is not what type of resource, but What delivery outcomes are we buying, and over what timeframe?
Where Funding Conversations Can Break Down
Procurement is often funded as a fixed overhead, a cost to be minimised whist seen as a compliance function. Yet it is expected to deliver:
- Hard cash savings
- Cost avoidance
- Risk reduction
- National policies
All whilst also being an enabler of clinical transformation.
This contradiction often leads to underinvestment or worse, false economies. This false economy occurs when cost reductions look sensible in isolation but reduce the ability for delivery of higher savings. This also creates higher costs or risk elsewhere in the organisation. Many of us will have seen examples where a lack of senior commercial input has resulted in contract extensions at inflated rates. Or, where limited category resource has missed aggregation and standardisation opportunities.
Cutting procurement capacity does not remove demand. It displaces it into slower delivery, increased risk, missed savings opportunities and greater reliance on escalation and crisis intervention. i.e. fire fighting and not strategic delivery.
What Leading NHS Organisations Are Doing Differently
I’ve been very fortunate to work with, and talk to, some of the leading NHS procurement organisations and collaborations. More mature organisations are deliberately separating run capacity from change capacity. Making strategic changes can’t be a side activity to an already stretched operational focused day job.
They are looking to treat procurement capability as an invest-to-save lever, not a sunk cost. This will of course take careful consideration and discussions with finance colleagues.
When working with consultancies, there is a focus on committing to time-bound commercial capability against explicit commercial outcomes. And this is often on a risk/reward or outcome bases agreement. Many are using blended models of permanent staff plus targeted specialist support and being pragmatic about IR35 vs consultancy where delivery risk justifies it.
Crucially, they are explicit about what procurement is expected to deliver and what it will not. For many teams, especially those in ICBs, there will be important decisions on what to stop doing and understanding the impacts on those decisions. I suspect many procurement collaborations and trusts will eventually also have to face that same difficult question.
The Question for Executive Teams
So where does that leave us not just for the NHS but across the wider public sector? Many are asking “How do we reduce procurement costs?”
The better question is likely to be:
“What procurement capacity do we need to deliver our priorities and what is the cost of not funding it properly?”
With Local Government Reforms and budget pressures centrally, as well as transformation of the NHS, the question has probably never been so relevant.
Underfunding procurement does not remove cost from the system, it moves it and usually multiplies it.
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