The Scottish Ambulance Service has its own procurement team based in Edinburgh. The Procurement Team buys a wide range of Service-specific goods and services. This includes items that support frontline patient care, such as medical equipment, ambulances, staff uniforms and air ambulance services. In addition, the Service purchases goods and services that support and maintain the organisation's infrastructure such as communications and IT equipment and services, property related services and various professional services. (These examples are intended to be illustrative, not an exhaustive list).
For more generic products used in common with other parts of the NHS, the Service collaborates with the rest of the NHS in Scotland and buys from contracts awarded by National Procurement. The Service also uses other Scottish or UK framework contracts where available to achieve best value in line with the recommendations of the McClelland Report published in 2006, for example Procurement Scotland or Buying Solutions.
Contracts worth in excess of £50,000 are advertised on Public Contracts Scotland and can also be viewed on the Service’s Buyer Profile. All contracts above the EU thresholds are also advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) in addition to these websites.