Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Role Summary

Buyers provide a high-quality procurement service throughout the Trust.  Buyers are responsible for:

·         The purchase of goods and services for the Trust ensuring that value for money is achieved by using existing contract arrangements, carrying out competitive quotations and negotiating improved terms of supply where possible.

·         Maintaining catalogues in their category areas ensuring catalogue updates are provided in a timely manner.

·         Undertaking analysis of operational buying trends to identify areas that would benefits from increased catalogue coverage and liaise with the category teams in relation to these areas. 

Key Working Relationships

Internal:  Operational and Clinical Managers; senior managers across the Trust, finance staff including accounts payable and finance systems, other members of the procurement team.    

External:  External suppliers, NHS Supply Chain and Category Towers.

Structure Chart

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Communication

·         Efficiently and effectively handle order queries, delivery issues, price / invoice queries, and urgent requests etc.

·         Liaise with key Trust staff ensuring that equipment conforms to agreed Trust standards.

·         Develop and maintain relationships with all key stakeholders including all Directorates and Departments, other Trusts, Healthcare Organisations and Suppliers to ensure excellent performance and that standards are achieved in line with contractual requirements.

·         Maintain the reputation of the procurement service as a highly professional and enabling business partnering service.

Service Delivery and Improvement

·         Procure goods and services as required to obtain best value for money for the Trust, working within the public sector policy and legal framework ensuring goods and services are purchased in a timely and efficient manner

·         Carry out quotation work in support of contract catalogue renewals and ad-hoc purchase requests.

·         Establish and maintain effective contracting arrangements and provide ongoing effective contract management as appropriate.

·         Provide support to the Supplies Team through ordering and ‘put-away’ support during periods of abnormal staff absence in the Materials Management Teams.

·         Support the work of the category teams, including identifying areas of development within procurement systems and approaches in Divisions and also in the implementation of such improvements.

·         Seek alternative products, subject to acceptability, as a result of either shortage of supply or as part of an initiative.

·         Assist with the identification and development of areas to increase catalogue coverage.

·         Authorise purchase orders and contracts in line with Trust Standing Financial Instructions and Delegated Financial Limits.

People Management and Development

·         Demonstrate own tasks to new starters within the team to support induction

·         Support new and existing Trust colleagues in the use of the e-purchasing system including telephone and face to face

Patient Care Delivery

·         Provide assistance to patients and visitors during incidental contact.

·         Liaison and engagement with patients, patient representatives and patient advocates on specific projects as part of stakeholder engagement.

Learning and Development

·         Attend mandatory training updates as required.

·         Undertake training as necessary in line with the development of the post and as agreed with the line manager as part of the personal development process.

·         Achieve and demonstrate agreed standards of personal and professional development within agreed timescales.

·         Identify own learning needs and jointly plan training requirements with your line manager

·         Participate in the Trust’s appraisal process to discuss how your role will help deliver the best possible care to our patients and help to deliver any changes in service.

This job description is an outline of the role and responsibilities. From time to time due to the needs of the service, we may ask you to flexibly undertake other duties that are consistent with your role and banding, including project work, internal job rotation and absence cover.

The job description and person specification may be reviewed on an ongoing basis in accordance with the changing needs of the department and the organisation.

Mission and values

The mission of University Hospitals Sussex – what we are striving to achieve – is to provide:

‘excellent care every time’

All our efforts to do this put the interests of our patients first and foremost, and are underpinned by our values:

• Compassion
• Communication
• Teamwork
• Respect
• Professionalism
• Inclusion 

These values were selected by our staff, patients and public when we were talking about the merger and the sort of organisation we want University Hospitals Sussex to be.

Our mission and values are extremely important to us and we expect everyone who works at University Hospitals Sussex in any capacity to share and uphold them.

Patient First

·         Patient First is our Trust-wide approach to improving the quality of care for patients and to build and embed a culture where staff can be confident that their views matter and will be heard.

·         The aim is to empower all staff to lead change, raise issues, concerns, identify and implement areas for improvement within the workplace and find solutions collectively as part of a team.

·         Staff will be equipped with skills to identify improvement opportunities and supported to see those through

·         It encourages all staff to be innovative and drive forward quality improvement and positive changes in their areas.  

·         The philosophy behind this is centred on:

·         Standardisation, system redesign and the improvement of patient pathways to eliminate error and waste and improve quality

·         The patient being at the heart of every element of change

·         Embedding cultural change across the organisation, where everyone is passionate about delivering exceptional quality every time and “where better never stops”.

·         Continuous improvement of our services through small steps of change

·         Constantly testing the patient pathway to see how we can develop

·         Encouraging frontline staff to lead the redesign processes

·         Equal voices for all

·         Engagement of staff is a big factor in job performance. 

·         Good engagement leads to improved quality, mortality and safety measures

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The Trust is committed to supporting Inclusion as can be seen by our Patient First Triangle with a clear value being Inclusion.  We all have a responsibility to treat our colleagues, patients and service users with respect and dignity irrespective of; age, race, disability, gender reassignment/identity, marriage and civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity status, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We are a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2) and part of the Stonewall Workplace Equality Champions programme.

All staff have a duty to report any behaviours which contravene this to their managers.