Social value and sustainability

Climate change is a significant threat to both our health and our planet. The environment is changing rapidly, and this acceleration has direct and immediate consequences for our patients, the public, and the NHS.

The NHS has committed to achieving net zero by 2040 for direct emissions and by 2045 for emissions influenced through the goods and services purchased from suppliers. To contribute to this goal, the East of England Ambulance Service is actively working to enhance the sustainability of our clinical service delivery and to reduce the carbon footprint of the goods and services we procure.

Sustainable procurement within EEAST involves acquiring goods and services in a manner that considers their environmental, social and economic impacts throughout their lifecycle. This approach ensures that procurement decisions support the NHS’s commitment to sustainability and net-zero targets. Key aspects include:

• Environmental Sustainability: Reducing carbon emissions, minimising waste, and promoting the use of renewable resources.
• Social Responsibility: Ensuring fair labour practices, supporting local communities, and promoting diversity and inclusion. This includes adhering to the Suppliers Code of Practice, EEAST's Supplier Sustainability Agreement, and encouraging suppliers to publish Carbon Reduction Plans.
• Economic Viability: Balancing cost-effectiveness with long-term sustainability goals, ensuring that procurement decisions contribute to economic growth and stability.

Supplier Sustainability Agreement

All Suppliers must sign and adhere to the Supplier Sustainability Agreement

For more information, please visit our guide to Sustainability.

EEAST employs a place-based approach to drive benefits into local communities, maximise value for public funds, and promote sustainability in procurement. Our methodology is designed to achieve the best social outcomes for the NHS and the communities we serve. It is based on key principles that aim to realise social value at all stages of the tendering life cycle, including pre-tender engagement, tender design, the evaluation process, and contract management.

We take a mixed approach to social value evaluation, considering both qualitative and quantitative elements. The quantitative aspects ensure that measurable social value commitments are made, while our qualitative delivery plan requirements provide assurance regarding the bidding organisation’s capability to deliver on these commitments.

Along with our Social Value partners at Social Value Portal, EEAST conducted a local needs analysis across the geographical footprint that we cover but specifically focused on the areas around our Ambulance Hub Sites. This enabled us to understand the drivers for inequalities within each area and formed the basis of the social and economic outcomes that we wanted to reflect within our TOMs measures. We combined the findings from this research with the NHS Social Value Model to create the bespoke NHS EEAST TOMs and these address the individual needs and priorities of the local areas and communities that we serve.

Our TOMs Measures can be found here.