Skip to main content
020 3510 0312 jennifer.adger@hsjinformation.co.uk

New NHSE director to lead £1.5bn savings programme

Published on: 12 Mar 2024

NHS England has appointed a senior director to lead an “ambitious” £1.5bn efficiencies programme.

Preeya Bailie has taken up the new post of director of the central commercial function, a team set up in 2022 to “unify the NHS commercial community” having previously been the director of procurement transformation and commercial delivery at NHS England.

The first duty of her new role will be to “lead the delivery of further NHS system-wide commercial efficiencies with ambitious plans of at least £1.5bn savings over the next five years,” according to the job description published last year.

The CCF leads on or has input into most aspects of the commercial directorate’s work. Ms Bailie will also oversee the team delivering the new commercial strategic framework, which was launched in November last year.

Early elements of the strategic framework have started to come into public view. This includes output from the initial stages of a programme to accredit procurement frameworks for trusts and integrated care boards to use.

Recent weeks have also seen some development in NHSE and the Department of Health and Social Care’s efforts to obtain a product information management database for the health service, which will be crucial to many important changes in how local NHS organisations manage assets, monitor outcomes from surgery, and improve patient safety.

Ms Bailie will be responsible for setting “the strategic intent” of the ongoing efforts to consolidate procurement operations from trusts up to the level of the ICBs. She will also “provide a degree of professional input and challenge to Supply Chain Coordination Limited, which runs the NHS Supply Chain.” NHSE became the shareholder of SCCL in 2021.

Ms Bailie has “been at NHS England for five years and has been an inspiring leader and colleague to many, supporting the NHS to deliver on its commercial ambitions,” according to an email sent to ICB heads of procurement by Jacqui Rock, NHSE’s chief commercial officer.

Before moving to NHSE Ms Bailie worked in the provider sector. NHSE’s director of commercial – digital, data and technology, Nic Fox, will cover her previous job, as an interim.