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Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust choose @UK PLC

Press Release 13th February 2006:

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is the largest Trust in the UK. It provides acute services for the population of Leeds and is a regional centre for the treatment of diseases such as cancer and heart disease. It employs approximately 15,000 staff across eight sites and treats 125,000 in-patients, 65,000 day cases and 700,000 out-patients each year. It has 3,000 beds and an annual budget of £640 million. The Trust's Supplies Department has been successfully trading electronically for over four years and has won numerous awards for its innovative procurement systems. The Trust is now looking to widen its e-Commerce platform to target its non-medical suppliers.

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has today agreed to be connected to the trading platform of @UK. Working together, @UK PLC and the Trust will develop integration to allow users of its Oracle purchasing system to access the suppliers and content held on the @UK PLC exchange.

This link will be implemented to enable the Trust's users to access a full range of goods and services from suppliers on-line. The @UK PLC technology is unique in allowing even very small suppliers to get on-line with a fully functioning trading website; thereby also supporting wider objectives such as Local Economic Development involvement with small and medium enterprises. Chris Slater, Head of Supplies at the Trust says of his choice of the eProcurement solution for Leeds: 'Our major concern is to widen our supplier community to be able to trade electronically with the Trust. The @UK solution will enable more market penetration and provide a cost effective solution particularly for many non-medical suppliers. This is in line with our strategy of rolling out e-Commerce and trading with the local business community in line with the ‘Making Leeds Better' programme.

This agreement with Leeds marks a major step forward in @UK's recently announced move into Healthcare. When connected, the Leeds model will be @UK's Oracle reference site and will be open for other Trusts to view and evaluate.