Through a recent poll of its membership, the NOA has identified that people are clearly important when it comes to outsourcing, and harnessing this talent it vital when it comes to delivering value from contracts.

Its no surprise then that according to Malcolm Preston, associate director of procurement at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, people are paramount. "If we pooled all of the expertise within the NHS, we would have one of the best-equipped and most capable procurement teams in the world. It would hold all the cards to find cost savings while improving services for patients. The problem is that we don't pool expertise" says Malcolm. This lack of pooling expertise in the government's NHS procurement strategy is "blocking NHS value for money".

Malcolm also goes on to say that "NHS procurement needs more than a makeover. It requires fundamental changes in attitude to cope with the conflicting priorities of competition and collaboration...We should be pooling information and working together to drive best value and standardised quality through supplier contracts. This would give the entire NHS a quality baseline in terms of the services they deliver".

With increased pressure to deliver value from outsourced contracts, it appears that the golden rules in the NOA's outsourcing lifecycle model are as true today as they were 26 years ago when the association started.

For more information from Malcolm Preston, please visit the Guardian website.