Suchergebnisse

PurposeAmbulance service trusts in England have historically had little or no competition for non-emergency patient transport services (NEPTS), but following the imposition of the NHS Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition (PPCC) Regulation (Number 2) 2013, NHS commissioners could accept suitable bids for NEPTS work from third-party commercial competition. This paper describes how NEPTS evolved in England and how an Ambulance Service Trust Board had to step-up their approach to bidding for NHS NEPTS work and to protect their brand and financial position in a competitive commercial market place.Design/methodology/approachThe Trust Board developed a competitive bidding strategy with a market research project using "grounded theory" to identify and categorise stakeholders' issues followed by re-engineering to achieve new operational goals. A fundamental element of the bid was an opportunity to share patient information between local NHS facilities using a common access data warehouse. This would represent a serious barrier to entry to any third-party non-NHS commercial competitor.FindingsKey projects were identified in the bidding process, including relocation of NEPTS resource bases, use of third-party resources and the establishment of a local NHS-wide data warehouse. They were all self-financing within the contract period and accepted by the commissioners. However, the establishment of NEPTS hubs at hospitals with clinics scattered throughout their grounds was rejected by the commissioners due to incompatibility with existing hospital practices.Originality/valueThis case study defines the challenges and opportunities faced by an English Ambulance Service Trust Board when responding to an invitation to tender (ITT) from NHS commissioners for NEPTS and competing with third-parties on a commercial basis. Any emergency service would face similar challenges bidding for work in a competitive environment.

The rapidly increasing demands on the logistics activity make
information systems the key variable in satisfying customer and
corporate requirements. Current systems are probably out of date and
unable to cope with current levels of use and demand. Presents criteria
and a process for selection of information systems based on three
approaches: package solutions; tailored package solutions and totally
bespoke solutions.

For decades distribution has been like a 'sleeping giant', content to carry on as in the past. Now it has received an awakening triggered by the information technology revolution. The result has been reduced costs and improved customer service. Alan Slater, managing consultant at Price Waterhouse discusses the importance of distribution information.

Philip Kotler identified the term "marketing" with two different but related processes; the first dealing with "the search for and stimulation of buyers" and the second with "the physical distribution of goods". The reason for superior international marketing performance by certain companies may be the result of a small number of correct strategic decisions, or of being in the right industry at the right time and being able to meet market demands. Continual high international marketing performance, however, is more likely to be the result of exceptional management control to overcome the problems of both the search and stimulation of overseas markets and the growing commitment successfully to feed those markets with the goods through a planned physical distribution pattern. International physical distribution management is not merely a marketing support system, but it is an integral part of the marketing mix which helps create and develop the international marketing process. Even though physical distribution does not portray the glamour associated with international marketing, it should not be forgotten as a part of the marketing mix. However, in the future, international marketing success may depend more and more upon the efficiency and practices employed to ensure economic physical distribution of goods especially as competition intensifies from developed and developing nations.

Continual rising fuel costs and rapidly increasing vehicle costs have generated management awareness of the costs incurred in physical distribution. Inevitably, management attention on the distribution function is drawn towards potential cost savings and increases in efficiency. Where transport costs represent a significant part of the total distibution costs, then one area which determines the efficiency of all others is the vehicle routing and scheduling activity which could collectively be known as load planning.

The objective of this monograph is to describe the industrial logistics structure within consumer goods industries and to provide a framework upon which the significance of the integrated industrial logistics system could be determined. The method of approach adopted is to define those problems which may occur within the logistics structure, define an ideal type of organisational structure and to monitor the effect of each type of decision within the established framework. Since all the elements of logistics add cost to a product, throughout the latter half of the discussion there is considerable emphasis upon methods of achieving the minimum cost throughout the channel.

Suggests that the population of the EU will still need drugs whether or not the EU continues to have a pharmaceutical industry. Various policies trying to control health service drugs bills have affected the drugs industry: increasingly the effects are adverse. The EU Commission is now taking an increasing interest in health care and pharmaceutical industry policy. It is therefore of some urgency to open the debate up by beginning to signal what the EU stands to lose if it loses the pharmaceutical industry in the EU. Although it is highly improbable that the EU will lose all the present pharmaceutical industry in the EU it is likely that it will lose some of it in the next five years, and it is almost certain that the industry in the EU will continue to yield with respect to industry in North America, the Pacific Basin and Asia.