Testimonials

'It's really useful because we can look at the information from all different angles and it's so easy to use,' says Ms Hamilton. 'It will help us rationalise and standardise our suppliers and products, which in turn means we can get better prices.'

Vicki Hamilton, The Head of Procurement and Supplies for the Outer South East London Shared Procurement
London Procurement Program

Latest News

14/11/2011
Carbon footprinting the NHS in England
SpendInsight technology used by NHS Sustainable Development Unit to examine the carbon footprint of the NHS in England.
28/09/2011
SpendInsight media coverage
SpendInsight media coverage
16/03/2011
Reports examined by Public Accounts Committee
The recent National Audit Office report, The Procurement of consumables by NHS acute and Foundation trusts was examimed by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee

News index

NSV Coding History

National Supplies Vocabulary (NSV) was the UK Government standard for item level-coding. It was maintained by the NSV centre in Southampton, who were privatised in 1999.

There are over 500,000 NSV codes. Each of these describe a functionally unique item. In some cases this may be a generic item, such as an HB pencil with an erasor, or it could be a branded item.

The NSV system consists of two key elements: Codes and Standardised Descriptions. The standardised descriptions are built up from the attributes of the product in a standard manner.

This structure makes the system very good for training Artificial Intelligence systems. @UK PLC was seeking to achieve improvements in two areas:-