Chris Whitehouse, a political consultant and expert on medical technology policy and regulation at Whitehouse Communications, and advisor to MedTech suppliers encourages industry engagement as the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care takes a further big step towards delivering value based procurement (VPB).
The UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has issued a call to MedTech suppliers to the NHS in England to register to participate in the next step of developing the new model for delivery of VBP due to be rolled out in ‘early 2026’.
The Department’s MedTech and Innovation Directorate are inviting MedTech suppliers actively to participate in the Alpha phase of the Medtech Compass programme to deliver the new Compass as a tool that supports smarter, faster and more evidence-based NHS procurement decisions.
The Compass project lead, Jason Nolan, in a call to suppliers in the sector, says it “aims to tackle a challenge shared across the system: the difficulty of comparing Medtech products based on holistic value and clinical outcomes. Procurement can be inconsistent and highly resource-intensive, with unnecessary duplication for both suppliers and NHS decision-makers”.
Compass is intended to bring consistency to the system by centralising evaluative Medtech data and enabling meaningful comparison beyond price alone, helping high-value innovation reach patients faster.
Compass, explains Nolan, will use a passporting model, centralising evaluative data from a range of trusted sources, once, and reusing it across the system. This will improve data quality and support the streamlining of procurement, aligned with the 10 Year Health Plan and Life Sciences Sector Plan.
The previous, Discovery stage of the plan concluded in March 2025, confirming strong user need among clinicians, procurement professionals and suppliers, for a trusted, centralised comparison tool. The latest Alpha stage has now commenced to test key assumptions, to develop a Compass prototype through structured interviews and group workshops with primary users and suppliers.
Government Ministers are committed to the new VBP going live in “early 2026”, and those suppliers wanting to be involved in the finalisation of the project are invited to register their interest in contributing views, testing early concepts or participating in research activities during the Alpha phase, by emailing the Project Lead at: jason.nolan@dhsc.gov.uk. MedTech suppliers would be well-advised to take full advantage of this opportunity to engage to ensure that the final version of the Compass platform meets their needs.
The Author used AI in preparing this article. Comments upon or questions about this article can be addressed to chris.whitehouse@whitehousecomms.com.
