Beth Loudon provides an introduction to value‑based procurement for practitioners working in NHS pathology services, who may have limited exposure to NHS purchasing practice. This article expands on common challenges and offers practical steps to make VBP workable.
Value‑based procurement (VBP) aims to shift NHS procurement from a narrow focus on price and meeting a specification to a broader assessment of patient outcomes, whole‑life cost and system efficiency. In diagnostics and pathology, this promise is compelling but hard to realise.
Diagnostic tests enable decisions; they rarely deliver clinical outcomes on their own. As a result, the evidence needed to prove value is distributed across clinical pathways, data systems and behaviours that sit outside the laboratory. This article aims to explain VBP, set out the specific barriers for in vitro diagnostics and pathology, and offer practical steps that the NHS, laboratories and suppliers can take to make VBP a feasible approach.
The ambition is clear: a system that chooses technologies for their impact on patients and services rather than their sticker price. Getting there requires tailored evaluation questions, better access to real‑world data, clearer separation between specification and value, and enhanced capability across procurement and clinical teams.
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