Operational Buyer

Partners Procurement Service (Hosted by Whittington Health NHS Trust)

Partners Procurement Service (“PPS”) is a NHS shared service, hosted by Whittington Health NHS Trust and delivering procurement services to four acute trusts in North London: Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Trust, North Middlesex University NHS Trust, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and Whittington Health.

These organisations collectively employ in excess of 15,000 staff and have non-pay spend profile of approximately £600m per annum (excluding pharmacy).

PPS has undergone a significant transformation over the last few years with development of common systems and procedures and a restructuring to embrace new ways of working and ensure alignment to the national models of procurement that are emerging within the NHS.

PPS is now looking for an individual to join its Operational Buying Team.

With a common cloud-based eProcurement and catalogue system (PeCOS); along with a shared helpdesk portal (Noesis), the operational buying team are an essential element of running a procurement shared service such as PPS.

The successful applicant will be required to be professionally accountable for the receipt, scrutiny and placement of purchase orders for all Partner Trusts and working principally using the applicant's own initiative. The applicant will also be responsible for providing professional procurement advice to all Partner Trusts and liaise frequently with hundreds of suppliers to ensure that goods and services once ordered are delivered as ordered on time and to an agreed price.

In addition, the applicant will be required to place orders for a range of product categories and to expedite these orders where appropriate to do so to meet end-user requirements as well as obtain and analyse low value quotations.

The applicant will have a logical, problem-solving mind with experience of procurement, within the NHS.

PPS is looking for an applicant who has top class interpersonal, communication, and analytical skills with a strong knowledge and experience of NHS procedures, systems, legislation and guidance.

As a team member the applicant will be expected to liaise with all of the other teams across PPS, including the systems team, the strategic category teams and the customer service (help desk) team.

PPS requires an Operational Buyer to manage the buying requirements of the PPS and to vet and convert authorised requisitions to purchase orders. This function is very busy and handles a large number of orders every day many of which are high priority and require to be completion within taut timelines.

**The role of Operational Buyer will encompass the following**:
Professionally accountable for the receipt, scrutiny and placement of purchase orders for all Partner Trusts and working principally on his /her own initiative;
Provide professional procurement advice to all Partner Trusts and liaise frequently with hundreds of suppliers to ensure that goods and services once ordered are delivered as ordered, on time and to agreed price;
To place orders for a range of product categories and to expedite these orders where appropriate to do so to meet end-user requirements;
Obtain and analyse low value quotations;
To be able to work to specified procurement procedures;
Responsible for liaising with suppliers and all Partner Trusts on a routine basis;
Responsible for the vetting of all authorised requisitions to ensure the goods and services are authorised to be purchased, the correct details are entered onto the order and that the pricing information is correct;
Responsible for updating the product catalogues where authorised to do so;
To ensure capital procurement compliance across all Partner Trusts with European/UK procurement law and Partner Trusts Standing Financial Instructions and Standing Orders;
Responsible for developing and maintaining a wide range of external relationships, notably, goods and services suppliers;
To operate as part of a team environment;
To deliver value for money during the course of processing orders;
To assist and support team members in their work; and

To undertake any other tasks allocated by senior management.