1. Doing more with less: Through
collaboration with clinical and
procurement teams, bringing
procurement best practices
and our own clinicians,
Accenture has worked
with Cambridge University
Hospitals to deliver significant
incremental procurement
savings to help the trust meet
its CIP targets.
Client background
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust (CUH) is one of
the largest and best known teaching
Trusts in the UK. It has over 7,000
staff working across two hospitals,
Addenbrookes, which provides
emergency, surgical and medical
care and The Rosie, a maternity
care hospital. CUH has a number of
different roles, acting as a national
centre for a number of specialist
conditions, a government-designated
Innovative procurement
drives an additional £10m in
annual savings for Cambridge
University Hospitals
comprehensive biomedical research
centre, one of only five academic
health science centres in the UK and
a university teaching hospital with
a worldwide reputation. Building on
these elements, and its core values of
kind, safe and excellent, CUH’s vision
is to be one of the best academic
healthcare organisations in the world.
Business challenge
The NHS faces a diverse set of
internal and external challenges.
Rising costs, an ageing population
and increased chronic disease
rates are putting huge pressure on
operational budgets. As a result,
the NHS is undergoing the biggest
changes since its inception, with
system wide structural reform
and the target to save £20bn over
four years by making year on year
efficiency changes. As a Foundation
Trust, CUH is afforded management
and budgetary autonomy to operate
within defined financial parameters.
If the trust is unable to meet these,
it risks loss of financial control,
significant damage to its reputation
and potential job losses.
How Accenture Helped
“I am most impressed with the
confident way the Accenture team
has worked; they recommended
the best value option that really
focuses on the patient experience.”
- Simon Lewis Associate Director of
Operations, Estates & Facilities at
Cambridge University Hospitals.
Accenture was engaged to help
the trust deliver incremental
savings alongside their own
procurement team. Cambridge
had already achieved significant
savings in procurement over
successive previous years, and
further identified four million
pounds worth of savings
through an internal procurement
assessment. However, they
needed to drive even more costs
and efficiencies throughout the
trust. Accenture was able to bring
additional procurement and clinical
expertise into CUH to support the
existing team and to help with
wider procurement engagement
throughout the trust. Accenture

2. “The approach was not centred
upon ‘buying more cheaply’
we took a holistic approach to
sourcing, substitution, demand
management and waste, summarised
in product or category business
cases, understanding their impact
on the patient and the total cost
of ownership.” - Rob Woodstock,
Procurement Delivery Lead,
Cambridge University Hospitals.
Collaboration was critical to the
successful delivery of this project;
the Accenture team consisted of
clinical and non-clinical staff who
worked at all levels with CUH. Using
this approach, Accenture was able to
go beyond the traditional safe zone
of non-clinical spend and realised
savings in both clinical and non-
clinical areas. For each category,
the users were offered a number
of alternatives allowing them to
assess the best fit solution. This
integrated approach helped with
the acceptance of the new products,
services, suppliers and processes.
Accenture further supported the
Trust to develop a centralised project
office and reporting capability so
that the impact of various projects
were well understood and aggregated
to help enable the changes and
communications to be well planned
and delivered.
High Performance Delivered
The project achieved annualised
savings of over £10 million for CUH
(realised over two financial years),
exceeding the target fee cap and the
expectations of both organisations.
By evaluating the total cost of
ownership throughout the healthcare
setting, Accenture helped improve
patient outcomes and upheld
Cambridge’s core values.
In a follow-up to this success,
Accenture worked on a wider
transformation project at Cambridge
which delivered a cost reduction
strategy for the hospital to achieve
over £50 million in annual savings
from its general operating budget
over two financial years. Together
these projects have helped CUH to
meet its yearly budget savings whilst
keeping the patient at the centre
of care.
demonstrated commitment and
confidence in its own delivery by
contracting the project under a 100%
value based arrangement - the trust
only paid fees once the savings had
been identified and agreed to have
been achieved.
Using best practices from the private
sector and collaborating closely
with the CUH team, Accenture
developed a bespoke cost reduction
strategy focused on CUH’s specific
issues. Cambridge was typically
spending between a third to half of
its operating budget on third-party
goods and services. An initial spend
analysis was conducted and fourteen
specific spend categories were then
targeted. Within each category
expenditure was reduced through:
• Managing clinical engagement,
acceptance of change and
innovative tendering
• Supplier engagement and
collaboration
• Standardisation of products,
suppliers and services
• Demand and waste management,
review of inventory and utilisation
• Optimising and renewing product
specifications
• Redesign of processes for ordering
and receipting, centralising
visibility and control
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