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Compliance and governance

The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) has a defined approach to governance and compliance where public accountability in delivering health services is required, it is imperative to providing safe quality care for patients and staff. This approach helps EEAST to maintain high standards of compliance and governance, ensuring that procurement activities support the organisation’s overall goals and sustainability objectives.

Our internal Standard Financial Instructions (SFIs) and Scheme of Delegation (SoD) confirm the internal approval processes required to approve and manage tenders and contracts with all major contracts requiring Board approval. Our SFIs also clearly sets out roles and responsibilities, delegated authority and accountability.

For consistency, our SFIs and SoD are underpinned by a number of policies and procedures that we follow to ensure compliance, transparency and fairness. Below are some of our key policies:

  • Public Contracts Regulations 2015
  • Procurement Policy
  • Anti-Fraud and Bribery Policy
  • Standards of Business Conduct Policy

These regulations and policies help ensure that the procurement process is conducted ethically, legally, and efficiently and any instance of non-compliance must be reported to our Audit Committee.

Procurement Act 2023 and Procurement Regulations 2024

The UK is undergoing significant changes in public procurement with the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023 and the Procurement Regulations 2024. These changes will come into effect on the 24 February 2025. They include:

Simplified Procedures: The new Act reduces the number of prescriptive procedures, making the procurement process more flexible and easier to navigate.

Increased Transparency: There will be greater oversight and transparency in how public funds are spent. Citizens will have access to public procurement data, allowing them to scrutinise spending decisions.

Enhanced Competition: The changes aim to open up public procurement to more suppliers, including small businesses and social enterprises, fostering greater competition and innovation.

Flexibility in Contracts: The new regime introduces flexible procedures like the competitive flexible procedure, which allows contracting authorities to tailor their procurement processes to meet specific needs.

Focus on Value for Money: The Act emphasises achieving better value for money, identifying cost savings, and reducing waste and inefficiency and expands value to include whole life costs, for instance disposal costs, as well as social value.

We will continue to update this page as we get closer to the ‘go live’ date.

Procurement within EEAST

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