LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – DLA Piper is delighted to announce their appointment to the panel for the Healthcare Purchasing Consortium (HPC) and London Procurement Programme (LPP). The HPC is the major NHS provider of purchasing, supply chain and commercial services across the West Midlands and North Central London.

The new partnership formed on 1 October 2006 works on behalf of more than 60 NHS Trusts. Together they spend £2.4 billion a year on goods and services.

DLA Piper has been appointed to the framework agreement to provide legal service in 7 of the 9 lots which include: Employment Law; Primary Care Services; Mental Health Law; Healthcare Law; Contract and Commercial; NHS & Public Law and Corporate Finance and PPP/PFI.

This appointment reflects DLA Piper’s growing credibility and stature in the NHS sector having previously been appointed by NHS Trusts to act solely on discrete projects. As a supplier to the purchasing hub DLA Piper will now be involved in a wider range of work for the NHS.

Stewart James, a partner in the Technology Media and Commercial Group commented: “This procurement required us to look at our business model from a number of new perspectives and I am delighted with the agility that we were able to display in adapting to the challenges this raised. We see this framework as a strategically important win coming, as it does, at the vanguard of a number of similar opportunities within this sector.”