18^th June 2008, LONDON

ProcServe, a leading provider of procurement and marketplace connectivity solutions, today announced that the availability of their customised electronic marketplace service for the NHS – NHS eTrade. This new release provides the industry’s first collaborative procurement marketplace to help streamline and deliver effective procurement services to the NHS.

NHS eTrade, which is based on the award winning UK Government Zanzibar System, will help NHS hospitals reduce the price paid for goods and services by providing them with easy access to pre-loaded collaborative contracts across the public sector, simple connectivity to suppliers and e-Invoicing capabilities. The NHS eTrade marketplace will also enable the NHS to purchase complex services such as purchased healthcare from a large range of suppliers leveraging easy to use procurement tools that will enable the accurate tracking of spent with comprehensive management information.

Mansel Chamberlain, Advisor to the NHS and former Procurement Director with NW London Procurement Confederation says “I view NHS eTrade as being the total collaborative solution for the NHS having significant back-end integration for NHS trusts and suppliers, not just the large suppliers but all suppliers both large and smallest. This is particularly significant to trusts that all have a significant ‘tail’ of suppliers who account for significant transaction volumes. Using the NHS eTrade service will enable every company to become eEnabled very quickly and for trusts to have access to supplier managed catalogues; a very significant benefit by implementing the service.”

Robert Knapman, Head of eCommerce with OGCbuying.solutions states “I'm delighted that Buying Solutions' Zanzibar eMarketplace has been used to provide the platform for NHS eTrade. This demonstrates the benefits of true collaboration and is a real example of joined up working. The functionality and core content of Zanzibar can now be used wisely to avoid the unnecessary duplication, wastage of public sector funds in incurring higher start up costs and the longer time that would have been needed for development and testing of a completely new system.”

Veera Johnson, CEO, ProcServe said “This is an exciting new release that will create a truly collaborative electronic marketplace for all NHS buyers and their suppliers, and to transform the way they procure goods and services and effectively improve efficiency and quality of work. It now extends the reach of the UK government.”

ProcServe will be sponsoring the NHS Confederation Annual Conference 2008 which is being held in Manchester on 18^th – 20^th June in Manchester.