Six NHS buying hubs have clubbed together to procure over 60,000 PCs, with HP, Dell and DSGi selected as the three suppliers.

The hardware deal, which was supported OGCbuying.solutions and NHS Connecting for Health, involves an initial purchase of 52,000 desktops and 8,500 laptops.

The six hubs involved represent 220 NHS Trusts and hope the deal will save them at least 20 per cent until it expires on 30 April 2009.

An OGCbuying.solutions spokesperson confirmed that Dell, DSGi and HP would act independently of each other to supply individual Trusts with machines and that the deal could potentially be worth more than its initial 60,500 units over its lifespan.

The six hubs involved in the deal are: Healthcare Purchasing Consortium; East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub; Yorkshire & Humber Commercial Procurement Collaborative; PRO-CURE (South Central England); North-West Collaborative Procurement Hub; and PRO-NE (North East of England).

Dave Smith, category manager, ICT Procurement – Hardware at OGCbuying.solutions, said: “The six procurement Hubs recognised that their requirements for IT equipment were common. It made sense, therefore, to take full advantage of this excellent opportunity to collaborate.

“OGCbuying.solutions was brought in at an early stage and helped to facilitate the collaboration and assisted with the procurement. NHS Connecting for Health were approached to input into the technical aspects of the procurement and to ensure alignment with the NHS National Programme for IT.”

Raj Sandhu of the Healthcare Purchasing Consortium, said: “Collaboration is nothing new to the CPHs however a collaboration exercise of this scale consisting of a team of individuals from six different regional organisations representing 220 NHS Trusts was a significant challenge we all recognised.

“We have been able to put aside local agendas in order to successfully construct a deal with our suppliers and deliver real benefit to the NHS.”