St. Luke's Plymouth Hospice

St. Luke's is a charity sector hospice providing inpatient care in a 20 bed unit plus a community team. It has approximately 200 staff, 900 volunteers, 2,000 patients a year across all services and is based in Plymouth.

Questions answered by Andrew Holland, Director of Finance and Trading.

Why did you join IHP?

We were looking to get value for money from purchasing in areas that couldn't use NHS Supplies by using a group buyer and one that would have expertise. We are too small to have a purchasing expert in house.

What benefits has IHP generated for your organisation?

IHP has secured a reduction in prices on a number of contracts when they originally set them up. It also acts as an easy alternative quote for one-off purchases.

How has IHP helped your organisation maximise the savings available to you?

They are easy to use and always on the end of a phone.

Tell us about a recent project that IHP has helped you with.

They are helping us to consolidate our shops' utilities contracts with single suppliers.

Do you find using IHP cost effective in terms of time and effort? How?

Yes, we often get quotes from existing suppliers and IHP allows us to get a comparison, reducing time taken in the process and sometimes saving money too.

How will your patients benefit from the savings you make?

Keeping our costs down helps us to maintain services.

What would you say to other healthcare providers that are considering becoming a member of IHP?

We have found them helpful and useful and continue to use them