Pathways 2 NHS Procurement |

Our Procurement Department comprises of 9 different categories. Despite the different functions of each category we all work together to procure goods and services for the NHS organisation. I currently work for NHS London Procurement Partnership which is based in London. If I had to use one word to describe my organization, it would have to be “Welcoming”.

The scheme allows me to undergo rotations across the different categories, and I get to spend 2 or 3 months with each team. This gives me a fantastic opportunity to learn in depth about their work, and hopefully allows me to decide which category makes me thrive so that I can aim to specialize in this area.

My first rotation was with the Workforce Alliance Category, this team are responsible for establishing sources to fill in NHS staff vacancies. Commencing the Scheme with very little knowledge in this area, I was immediately exposed to different concepts including “Frameworks” these are agreements between the NHS (as the buyer) and suppliers, these enable us to place orders for goods or services without conducting a long tender exercise.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to act as an evaluator for a piece of work they were auctioning. The potential suppliers submitted responses to a set of questions. I next had to score their responses, subsequently we moderated my results with a colleague to ensure the final score was fair. The evaluator I worked when moderating my output was an experienced member of our Procurement team, I learnt from her how to tackle procurement at a different angle.

My next rotation was with the Customer Facing team. Here we communicate with our customers and ensures that all parties are satisfied. I learnt how the Customer team play a vital role in generating income for the Trust as we have several customers that pay a membership fee to obtain our services. This rotation allowed me to join meetings with our customers and I learnt how both parties communicate effectively and the terminology used. It was certainly a great experience that allowed me to work in the office and the field as well.

I studied Languages at the University of Leeds, and after I graduated, I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do – the two obvious options with a languages degree were teaching or translation and I wasn’t sure that either of them were right for me. I took some time out to travel and spent time in both South America and Australia/New Zealand and had a temporary job in a HR department that I did for a few months at a time in between these trips.

During the Covid lockdowns I began to think more about what I wanted to do long term and started to look for jobs and graduate schemes to apply to. I saw the Pathways 2 Procurement graduate scheme advertised on my university’s alumni careers website and decided that this was something that would really interest me – at the time the NHS was very prominent in the news due to Covid-19 and the job role sounded like something that I would enjoy, so it seemed like a great combination. I submitted my initial application, completed the reasoning tests, and heard back within a week or so that I had progressed to the interview stage.

Throughout the application and interview process, there was a great level of communication from the Pathways 2 Procurement team. There were no long waits to find out whether I had progressed to the next stage. The interview panels were really friendly and left me feeling excited about the prospect of the role and a career in the NHS.

I was ultimately lucky enough to be offered a role across two organisations, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) and Central and North West London NHS Trust (CNWL). I found this a really interesting mix, as UCLH is a large acute hospital, whereas CNWL is a mental health and community trust, so the types of procurements I was able to work on varied quite a lot. At UCLH I joined the corporate procurement team, who look after all non-clinical goods and services, however I was also able to gain some experience shadowing the clinical procurement teams to gain a better understanding of how they purchased key clinical items. At CNWL I worked mostly in the mental health area, procuring services such as a counselling provider to take on some of the additional demand caused by the Covid backlog.

I was given a lot of independence from early in the role which I enjoyed, as I knew that I could always reach out to my line managers or other team members for support if I needed it. I was able to manage my own time between the two organisations as needed rather than sticking to a set rota, and generally worked one day in each office per week and the rest of the time from home. I enjoyed this balance as it meant that I wasn’t restricted to certain days, and that I was able to make the most of opportunities at both organisations.

I was also offered a lot of training and development opportunities, which I tried to take wherever possible. My organisations provided me a lot of support whilst I studied for CIPS and allowed me to take study leave as needed which was a huge help. I also found that many of my colleagues were studying for the same qualification, or had recently completed it, so I had a lot of people that I could reach out to for any support or just to discuss how the course was going. There were also a number of additional opportunities offered by the NHS Skills Development team; one course that I found particularly useful was ran by Achilles and covered the rules and regulations of public sector procurement. This area was completely new to me when I began my role, so attending this course early on in the scheme helped me to gain a strong understanding of what to consider when running a public sector procurement, and how to avoid any potential issues.

One of my highlights of the scheme was having the opportunity to attend a week-long Procurement Development Programme in Nottingham. Almost all of the graduates were able to attend, so it was a great opportunity to spend time with everyone and hear about their experiences, whilst also learning a lot more about different aspects of NHS procurement. There was a range of speakers including the CEO of NHS Supply Chain and the Director of Procurement for the NHS Central Commercial Function, and to have the opportunity to network with these speakers and learn more about their roles was invaluable.

As I was approaching the end of my time on the scheme, I began to think about applying for a permanent role. At this time, a job became available at UCLH, and my line manager encouraged me to apply. I was ultimately successful and secured a permanent Band 7 role as an Assistant Procurement Business Partner in the Surgery & Cancer Board. For me, the graduate scheme was crucial in helping me progress to this role, as throughout the two-year scheme my managers had allowed me to take responsibility for projects and gain experience that I perhaps wouldn’t have had the chance to do in a different entry-level role. I came into my new role feeling confident with the knowledge and skills that I had developed over the two-year scheme, and so far, am really enjoying the role and the chance to learn more about procuring clinical goods and services.

To anybody thinking of applying for the Pathways 2 Procurement NHS Graduate Scheme, I would say go for it! If you are prepared to put in the hard work and take the opportunities offered, then there is a real chance to build a career in procurement.

I joined the Pathways to Procurement Graduate Scheme after completing a Marketing degree at Lancaster University where I first gained an interest in contracting and negotiations. I applied to the scheme due to the excellent training that the CIPS Level 4 course would offer and the opportunity to learn about the valuable services the NHS offer. I was thrilled to hear that I had been offered a role within the North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative, which is based in Sheffield.

My experience of the scheme involved a series of rotations throughout the organisation. This included the NOE CPC Hub Procurement Operations team, Hotel Services, Marketing & Communications and category experience; mainly within Facilities Management, Property and Business Services and Human Resources and People. The wide variety of rotations allowed me to gain practical procurement experience which aligned well with my CIPS modules, whilst also gaining a holistic view of the organisation.

Throughout my graduate scheme, I was offered a wide range of guidance from my team. I had weekly catch ups with my line manager Caroline Brash and also support from my mentor Annie Patton. This was invaluable to my experience at NOE CPC as it gave me the opportunity to ask questions and further enhance my learning. I also had the privilege to feedback on my experiences and NOE CPC tailored the scheme to suit where my interests were beginning to develop. For example, I was able to work with our supplier relationships team to learn about how we manage suppliers within the NHS and how partnerships can be fostered.

I am now a Procurement Support Officer working within the HR & People Category and I am continuing to learn and face new challenges every day. I enjoy that each day brings something different to my procurement experience and I feel very supported by the team around me. I have also been given the opportunity to explore new interests including sustainability and social value as well as work on my personal development through speaking at conferences and attending various networking events.

I am very glad I applied to the scheme and I encourage graduates, regardless of their degree or background to apply. The scheme provides the teaching and support to become a valuable member of the NHS.

I studied Maths at Oxford and was looking to get into the NHS after I left. I was interested in this scheme as it had locations in the North and seemed to offer a good work/life balance. I found the application process to be really clearly communicated compared to some other schemes I’d applied to, and everyone interviewing me was very friendly, which definitely helped with the job-interview-nerves!

I work at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, which is a large Trust with a procurement team of around 100 people total. I’ve found the working culture here to be friendly and welcoming - in particular, my managers have been incredibly supportive when I have had personal issues outside of work. Probably my favourite thing about the scheme is that I’ve had opportunities to work in every team within our procurement department, which has been great as I’ve been able to try my hand at different kinds of projects, and often worked with more than one team at once, so there was a lot of variety in each week. Now that I’m in a permanent role, it’s given me a good understanding of the whole procurement process that I can draw from. Doing the graduate scheme rotations also allowed me to get to know people across the department, which is actually really useful now as I know people in each team who I could ask for their perspective if I need it. It also just means I can go on a wander to say hi to some old colleagues when I need a break from my desk!

As the scheme went on, I had regular mentoring meetings with senior managers, who supported me to think about the kind of role I would like to go into permanently and develop the skills and experience needed to successfully apply for a permanent role at Leeds. Towards the end of the scheme, I completed a six month secondment as a clinical contract manager, which was really good fun as I got to work with surgeons to look at procurement opportunities for surgical implants and put together analysis to support our options. At the end of this secondment, I decided not to apply for the contract manager role permanently, as another role came up at Leeds which suits me better at this point in time. Now I work in the eProcurement team, which I really enjoy as we deal with the systems that allow orders from all over the Trust to be processed, so it’s very fast paced with a lot of variety. Working in a hospital is never dull!

Our Procurement Department comprises of 9 different categories. Despite the different functions of each category, we all work together to procure goods and services for the NHS organisation. I currently work for NHS London Procurement Partnership which is based in London. If I had to use one word to describe my organization, it would have to be “Welcoming”.

The scheme allows me to undergo rotations across the different categories, and I get to spend 2 or 3 months with each team. This gives me a fantastic opportunity to learn in depth about their work, and hopefully allows me to decide which category makes me thrive so that I can aim to specialize in this area.

My first rotation was with the Workforce Alliance Category, this team are responsible for establishing sources to fill in NHS staff vacancies. Commencing the Scheme with very little knowledge in this area, I was immediately exposed to different concepts including “Frameworks” these are agreements between the NHS (as the buyer) and suppliers, these enable us to place orders for goods or services without conducting a long tender exercise.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to act as an evaluator for a piece of work they were auctioning. The potential suppliers submitted responses to a set of questions. I next had to score their responses, subsequently we moderated my results with a colleague to ensure the final score was fair. The evaluator I worked when moderating my output was an experienced member of our Procurement team, I learnt from her how to tackle procurement at a different angle.

My next rotation was with the Customer Facing team. Here we communicate with our customers and ensures that all parties are satisfied. I learnt how the Customer team play a vital role in generating income for the Trust as we have several customers that pay a membership fee to obtain our services. This rotation allowed me to join meetings with our customers and I learnt how both parties communicate effectively,, and the terminology used. It was certainly a great experience that allowed me to work in the office and the field as well.

I joined the Pathways to Procurement Graduate Scheme after completing a Marketing degree at Lancaster University where I first gained an interest in contracting and negotiations. I applied to the scheme due to the excellent training that the CIPS Level 4 course would offer and the opportunity to learn about the valuable services the NHS offer. I was thrilled to hear that I had been offered a role within the North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative, which is based in Sheffield.

My experience of the scheme involved a series of rotations throughout the organisation. This included the NOE CPC Hub Procurement Operations team, Hotel Services, Marketing & Communications and category experience, mainly within Facilities Management, Property and Business Services and Human Resources and People. The wide variety of rotations allowed me to gain practical procurement experience which aligned well with my CIPS modules, whilst also gaining a holistic view of the organisation.

Throughout my graduate scheme, I was offered a wide range of guidance from my team. I had weekly catch ups with my line manager Caroline Brash and also support from my mentor Annie Patton.

This was invaluable to my experience at NOE CPC as it gave me the opportunity to ask questions and further enhance my learning. I also had the privilege to feedback on my experiences and NOE CPC tailored the scheme to suit where my interests were beginning to develop. For example, I was able to work with our supplier relationships team to learn about how we manage suppliers within the NHS and how partnerships can be fostered.

I am now a Procurement Support Officer working within the HR & People Category and I am continuing to learn and face new challenges every day. I enjoy that each day brings something different to my procurement experience and I feel very supported by the team around me. I have also been given the opportunity to explore new interests including sustainability and social value as well as work on my personal development through speaking at conferences and attending various networking events.

I studied Maths at Oxford and was looking to get into the NHS after I left. I was interested in this scheme as it had locations in the North and seemed to offer a good work/life balance. I found the application process to be really clearly communicated compared to some other schemes I’d applied to, and everyone interviewing me was very friendly, which definitely helped with the job-interview-nerves!

I work at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, which is a large Trust with a procurement team of around 100 people total. I’ve found the working culture here to be friendly and welcoming - in particular, my managers have been incredibly supportive when I have had personal issues outside of work. Probably my favourite thing about the scheme is that I’ve had opportunities to work in every team within our procurement department, which has been great as I’ve been able to try my hand at different kinds of projects, and often worked with more than one team at once, so there was a lot of variety in each week. Now that I’m in a permanent role, it’s given me a good understanding of the whole procurement process that I can draw from. Doing the graduate scheme rotations also allowed me to get to know people across the department, which is actually really useful now as I know people in each team who I could ask for their perspective if I need it. It also just means I can go on a wander to say hi to some old colleagues when I need a break from my desk!

As the scheme went on, I had regular mentoring meetings with senior managers, who supported me to think about the kind of role I would like to go into permanently and develop the skills and experience needed to successfully apply for a permanent role at Leeds. Towards the end of the scheme, I completed a six-month secondment as a clinical contract manager, which was really good fun as I got to work with surgeons to look at procurement opportunities for surgical implants and put together analysis to support our options. At the end of this secondment, I decided not to apply for the contract manager role permanently, as another role came up at Leeds which suits me better at this point in time. Now I work in the eProcurement team, which I really enjoy as we deal with the systems that allow orders from all over the Trust to be processed, so it’s very fast paced with a lot of variety. Working in a hospital is never dull!

I studied Languages at the University of Leeds, and after I graduated, I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do – the two obvious options with a languages degree were teaching or translation and I wasn’t sure that either of them were right for me. I took some time out to travel and spent time in both South America and Australia/New Zealand and had a temporary job in a HR department that I did for a few months at a time in between these trips.

During the Covid lockdowns I began to think more about what I wanted to do long term and started to look for jobs and graduate schemes to apply to. I saw the Pathways 2 Procurement graduate scheme advertised on my university’s alumni careers website and decided that this was something that would really interest me – at the time the NHS was very prominent in the news due to Covid-19 and the job role sounded like something that I would enjoy, so it seemed like a great combination. I submitted my initial application, completed the reasoning tests, and heard back within a week or so that I had progressed to the interview stage.

Throughout the application and interview process, there was a great level of communication from the Pathways 2 Procurement team. There were no long waits to find out whether I had progressed to the next stage. The interview panels were really friendly and left me feeling excited about the prospect of the role and a career in the NHS.

I was ultimately lucky enough to be offered a role across two organisations, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) and Central and North West London NHS Trust (CNWL). I found this a really interesting mix, as UCLH is a large acute hospital, whereas CNWL is a mental health and community trust, so the types of procurements I was able to work on varied quite a lot. At UCLH I joined the corporate procurement team, who look after all non-clinical goods and services, however I was also able to gain some experience shadowing the clinical procurement teams to gain a better understanding of how they purchased key clinical items. At CNWL I worked mostly in the mental health area, procuring services such as a counselling provider to take on some of the additional demand caused by the Covid backlog.

I was given a lot of independence from early in the role which I enjoyed, as I knew that I could always reach out to my line managers or other team members for support if I needed it. I was able to manage my own time between the two organisations as needed rather than sticking to a set rota, and generally worked one day in each office per week and the rest of the time from home. I enjoyed this balance as it meant that I wasn’t restricted to certain days, and that I was able to make the most of opportunities at both organisations.

I was also offered a lot of training and development opportunities, which I tried to take wherever possible. My organisations provided me a lot of support whilst I studied for CIPS and allowed me to take study leave as needed which was a huge help. I also found that many of my colleagues were studying for the same qualification, or had recently completed it, so I had a lot of people that I could reach out to for any support or just to discuss how the course was going. There were also a number of additional opportunities offered by the NHS Skills Development team; one course that I found particularly useful was ran by Achilles and covered the rules and regulations of public sector procurement. This area was completely new to me when I began my role, so attending this course early on in the scheme helped me to gain a strong understanding of what to consider when running a public sector procurement, and how to avoid any potential issues.

One of my highlights of the scheme was having the opportunity to attend a week-long Procurement Development Programme in Nottingham. Almost all of the graduates were able to attend, so it was a great opportunity to spend time with everyone and hear about their experiences, whilst also learning a lot more about different aspects of NHS procurement. There was a range of speakers including the CEO of NHS Supply Chain and the Director of Procurement for the NHS Central Commercial Function, and to have the opportunity to network with these speakers and learn more about their roles was invaluable.

As I was approaching the end of my time on the scheme, I began to think about applying for a permanent role. At this time, a job became available at UCLH, and my line manager encouraged me to apply. I was ultimately successful and secured a permanent Band 7 role as an Assistant Procurement Business Partner in the Surgery & Cancer Board. For me, the graduate scheme was crucial in helping me progress to this role, as throughout the two-year scheme my managers had allowed me to take responsibility for projects and gain experience that I perhaps wouldn’t have had the chance to do in a different entry-level role. I came into my new role feeling confident with the knowledge and skills that I had developed over the two-year scheme, and so far, am really enjoying the role and the chance to learn more about procuring clinical goods and services.

To anybody thinking of applying for the Pathways 2 Procurement NHS Graduate Scheme, I would say go for it! If you are prepared to put in the hard work and take the opportunities offered, then there is a real chance to build a career in procurement.