NHS Supply Chain

Customer overview

NHS Supply Chain plays a critical role within the NHS ecosystem, managing the sourcing and delivery of everything from tea-break biscuits to MRI scanners into hospitals every day of the week. With such a direct impact on Trusts, clinicians, and ultimately patients, reliable and responsive digital services are essential.

As the organisation looked to strengthen its technology capabilities and prepare for the future, it became clear that its existing IT model was no longer fit for what lay ahead.

The challenge

Until 2024, NHS Supply Chain relied on a single IT provider to deliver all services. While this had worked historically, it limited flexibility, innovation, and access to specialist expertise. 

The organisation recognised the opportunity to move to a multi-partner model, breaking services into logical components and bringing in best-of-breed providers for each area. This would allow NHS Supply Chain to access deeper expertise, futureproof its services, and better support the pace of change across healthcare and logistics. 

However, moving to a multi-supplier environment introduced new complexity. NHS Supply Chain needed a way to coordinate partners effectively, maintain consistent service experiences for users, and ensure performance could be governed and continuously improved.

An agile approach with innovation built-in

Littlefish Group was selected to play a dual role within the new model, providing both Service Integration and Management (SIAM) and Modern Workplace services.

As the SIAM provider, Littlefish is responsible for coordinating and managing all of NHS Supply Chain’s IT partners; including setting common processes and ensuring services work together as a coherent whole. At the same time, Littlefish Group deliver day-to-day Modern Workplace services, supporting end users directly and remaining fully accountable as part of the ecosystem rather than sitting outside it.

From the outset, the relationship focused on collaboration. Onsite engineers were embedded into NHS Supply Chain locations, bringing face-to-face support back into the user experience and strengthening trust with internal teams. Alongside this, Littlefish Group brought a flexible, improvement-led mindset – making meaningful incremental changes, not just delivering large transformation projects.

Positive outcomes: the Littlefish Group difference

While the technology foundations matter, NHS Supply Chain has seen that the real impact comes from people and ways of working. 

Littlefish teams are highly responsive, collaborative, and genuinely invested in finding solutions that work for everyone. End users have responded positively to the presence of onsite engineers and the more human approach to support. The Littlefish team’s “can‑do” attitude has helped NHS Supply Chain move faster, resolve issues more effectively, and continuously mature the operating model. 

This partnership approach means innovation is embedded into everyday delivery. Improvements do not rely on occasional initiatives, they are now part of how the service runs and evolves. 

Since Littlefish joined the ecosystem, NHS Supply Chain has seen clear operational improvements, including: 

• Higher first-time resolution rates 

• Improved customer satisfaction scores from the service desk 

• More reliable delivery of devices, on time and first-time fixed 

• Stronger collaboration across IT partners under a single, coordinated model 

Operationally, the impact has been consistently positive, creating a more predictable and supportive experience for users across the organisation.

Looking ahead

The pace of change in IT and healthcare logistics shows no sign of slowing. Over the last 18 months, NHS Supply Chain and Littlefish Group have established a strong foundation for a stable, multiparter environment. 

Looking forward, there is a clear opportunity to continue evolving the model, building on what is already working well, and driving further improvements together. NHS Supply Chain plans to do that in close partnership with Littlefish Group over the coming years, strengthening digital services that ultimately support the wider NHS