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FOI release

FOI – 2023-000240 Insourcing (HTML)

Published on 27 July 2023

Date received – 10 July 2023 | Date responded – 27 July 2023

Request

Please can you provide some clarification the below queries:

  • Has the health board utilised "Insourcing" with the FY 22/23?
  • What was the insourcing spend by the health board for 22/23?
  • How was Insourcing procured by the health board? Was a particular framework used?
  • Outside of procurement team who is the Senior Officer responsible for Insourcing?

For clarity, 'insourcing' is defined as: "where an NHS organisation sub-contracts medical services/procedures. It differs to locum supply in that the full end to end service is provided, not just staff."

Response

Please can you provide some clarification the below queries:

  • Has the health board utilised "Insourcing" with the FY 22/23?

Under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 (FOISA) an organization does not have to provide that information if it does not hold that information. NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) does not hold that information, as it has not utilised insourcing within the Financial Year (FY) 2022/2023. NSS, National Procurement (NP) only manage the administration of the service and the tendering/award of the Insourcing Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) and would not expect to utilise the DPS for insourcing internally as NSS provide a limited amount of "Patient Facing" services.

  • What was the insourcing spend by the health board for 22/23?

Under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 (FOISA) an organization does not have to provide that information if it does not hold that information. NSS does not hold this information as there has been no insourcing medical services spend for FY 2022/2023. As above NSS NP only manage the administration of the service. As the territorial health boards (HB) manage their own local contracts and we have no visibility or record of territorial HB spend. If you wish to contact the territorial HBs, please find the list of their FOI email addresses below.

  • How was Insourcing procured by the health board? Was a particular framework used?

Under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 (FOISA) an organization does not have to provide that information if it does not hold that information. NSS does not hold that information, as it does not currently procure insourcing medical services. NSS manage the DPS, which provides the territorial health boards with lists of potential suppliers who have already met a minimum criterion, such as turnover, insurances and references before they are added to the DPS.

HBs can call off from the DPS via a mini competition using the Public Contracts Scotland website3 and award their own local contracts. HBs can choose to utilise the national DPS, other NSS or UK framework that is relevant to the services that are being procured.

  • Outside of procurement team who is the Senior Officer responsible for Insourcing?

Under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 (FOISA) an organization does not have to provide that information if it does not hold that information. NHS NSS does not have anyone out with NP responsible for insourcing in NSS, as we do not utilise these services.

Within the territorial HBs, various staff may manage the insourcing services and we do not have an available list of these staff. Contact details for Procurement teams will be available on the local HBs websites if you wish to contact them. Please see below the FOI email addresses for the HBs:

I trust you will find the information of assistance and if you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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Contact

Email: nss.foi@nhs.scot

Address

NHS National Services Scotland
Headquarters
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1 South Gyle Crescent
Edinburgh
EH12 9EB

If after a review you are still unhappy, you also have the right to apply to the Scottish Information Commissioner, who can be contacted at Kinburn Castle, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DS, or via their application form.

National Services Scotland (NSS) is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. You can view all FOI responses within our FOI Publications repository.

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