Buying Solutions (BS) has just written to suppliers on all its framework agreements to provide guidance on its transparency policy. The guidance sets out provisions that may be applied to information about their contracts…retrospectively…I think. The document is so opaquely written that it is hard to tell! Download it here. (PDF)
Ironically, the transparency guidance was sent to me just as I was contemplating Buying Solutions’s apparent reluctance to produce a response to the concerns expressed by a Telecare Aware reader that NHS Direct and NHS Airedale Trust have unfair advantages over other suppliers on the framework agreement – in that they probably cannot be bound by the performance liability requirements and that, as potential purchasers under the agreement, they can also access information on their competitor’s prices, etc. It’s now 13 days since I received a response from BS’s Press Office after I emailed a link to my previous rant about it to their Chief Executive. In that email they said “We are looking into your enquiries regarding our Telecare framework agreement and will respond to you shortly.”