Chris Tulloch has been a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust for 22 years. As Clinical Director he became aware through The Foundation Trust Network benchmarking exercise that there was a great variation in the pricing of Orthopaedic implants. Faced with the need to assist in the Cost Improvement programme he decided to go down the route of “target pricing”. Negotiation was needed with both his colleagues and the manufacturers but the end result was a significant cost saving. This process gave Chris an insight into the Machiavellian process of procurement he has subsequently assisted in the Orthopaedic QIPP programme.
