The National Unified Procurement Company (NUPCO) is entirely owned by the Public Investment Fund. It is working to enhance the level of the healthcare sector by strategically improving healthcare facilities in all public hospitals and medical centers in Saudi Arabia and enhancing expenditure efficiency regarding the procurement of medication and medical devices and supplies. NUPCO aims to achieve the best health service for patients in a way that meets the government’s requirements and achieves the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030.
Establishment of the National Unified Procurement Company
The National Unified Procurement Company was established in 2009 by virtue of a Royal Decree with a capital of SAR1.5 billion. Since then, it has become the biggest centralized company in the field of medical procurement, warehousing, and distribution of medication, medical devices and supplies. Its headquarters is located in the capital city, Riyadh.
National Unified Procurement Company System
The company uses a unified procurement system to provide medicines, medical devices, and supplies to governmental health authorities. This system helps to determine the needs of health authorities through pre-need planning based on reliable data and ensures continuous supply to health sectors. It provides flexibility for the company to purchase from all available internal or external sources.
The company raises the effectiveness of supply chains by managing the inventory and organizing the products and quantities consumed by each health sector according to its needs. This would help achieve economic benefits, reduce the percentage of damaged inventory, and provide appropriate storage spaces according to advanced scientific bases, in addition to maintaining the minimum strategic stock of medicines and medical supplies in the Kingdom.
Departments of the National Unified Procurement Company
The company has created six departments and three units to achieve the goal of a unified procurement system. Three of the said departments are concerned with management, whether competition, supplier relations, or contract management. While the other three serve the purpose of classification, whether for drugs, medical devices, or medical supplies classification. As for the units, they are divided into direct procurement, materials coding, and control and development unit.
National Unified Procurement Company Services
The company launched Marketplace, a platform that displays an e-catalog of medical products with information about the products, competitive prices, and delivery time. This service has contributed to providing annual reports on medicines and customer behavior, which helped raise consumer awareness, reduce costs, and minimize the unneeded inventory quantities that are subject to expiration. Furthermore, it helped provide medication for a year at fixed prices and reduce hospitals operating costs through express delivery service.
The company has developed a unified electronic guide for medicines, medical devices, and supplies for all government health agencies, including technical specifications that are updated periodically. This guide helps provide an approved reference for prices locally and internationally and links supply contracts with operational consumables.
The company launched the Wasfaty service, which connects hospitals and primary healthcare centers with private pharmacies so that the patient can receive medicine from the nearest place. This service contributes to reducing waiting time, helping hospitals' administration, enhancing usage instructions, and avoiding medical errors. Moreover, reducing the financial costs of the Ministry of Health as well as drug waste.
In 2020, NUPCO obtained the (ISO 27001: 2013 certificate) concerning information security.
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