Evaluating and embedding social values in procurement East London NHS Foundation Trust

East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) provides community health, mental health and primary care services across a wide geographical area, serving over 1.8 million people in some of the most deprived communities in England.

ELFT is a large employer and spends nearly £500m a year on goods and services, which means that the Trust has an important role to play in improving the health and wellbeing of the communities it serves, and in tackling health inequalities and social injustices.

In 2020/21, the Trust agreed on a list of social value priorities to be adopted and embedded within the Trust as part of its strategy to tackle the wider determinants of health and reduce health inequalities. Part of this has been to make sure that the suppliers that are contracted with the Trust are doing their bit to support, grow and invest in the local communities.

Building on this work, this project will involve assessing how well efforts to implement social values into procurement has been working so far, and how the Trust can measure its progress and the impact it is having on health inequalities.

This evaluation will generate important new learning and identify best practice which can be adopted in other areas of the Trust’s anchor programme, including creating better employment, improving environmental sustainability, and better use of land and estates.

The learning from this evaluation will also be shared with other organisations in the anchor network that are embarking on a similar journey.

Contact information

For more information about this project, please contact Angela Bartley, Deputy Director of Population Health, East London NHS Foundation Trust.