Spend Comparison Service - End User Access Agreement (EUAA)

Please read this EUAA carefully before you start to use the Spend Comparison Service (SCS).

The SCS is centrally funded, managed and operated by NHS England. It comprises a free-to-use data collection and set of analytical reports and dashboards that outline procurement activity and related data of In Scope Organisations (Submitting). It allows Users to compare price and spend data, helping to identify potential savings, leverage the market and collaborate to purchase goods and services.

At inception, the SCS was underpinned by a legal basis for data submission through a mandatory request made under section 255 of the Health and Social Care Act 2022 (treated from 1 July 2012 as a direction under section 254). From 1 April 2024, the legal basis underpinning the data submission is the exercise of NHS England’s powers to require NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts (NHS Providers) to provide information. In particular, NHS England’s powers under Condition G1 of the Standard Conditions of the NHS Provider Licence (provision of information) and, as respects NHS Trusts, its powers under paragraph 13(1) of Schedule 4 to the National Health Service Act 2006. 

By letter dated April 2024, NHS England required NHS Providers to provide NHS England with purchase order and accounts payable data. This requirement is in addition to specific obligations set out elsewhere in the NHS Provider Licence. 

Under Condition G1 of the Standard Conditions of the NHS Provider Licence, NHS England may require such information for any of the purposes set out in section 96(2) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Relevant purposes include:

• regulating the price payable for the provision of NHS services
• enabling the provision of NHS services to be provided in an integrated way
• enabling, promoting or securing co-operation between providers of NHS services
• purposes connected with the governance of providers of NHS services

By submitting data to the SCS and using the free-to-use analytical tool, NHS Providers will have visibility into supplier, product and service usage, helping them to identify and address unwarranted usage and price variation. This helps NHS Providers to operate efficiently, economically and effectively, and to collaborate to do so.  

The SCS is intended to provide users with procurement information retrospectively, that could be used to inform future procurement activity (for example, addressing product price variation, product rationalisation, supplier and/or supply route consolidation).

For the avoidance of doubt it is in no way an endorsement of a particular product, its quality or the supplier. Organisations will need to satisfy themselves that all procurement and clinical governance has been followed before going ahead with any procurement.

This is Version 2.0 of this EUAA, which was most recently updated on 16 July 2024.

2.1

The following definitions are used in this EUAA:

This EUAA (together with the documents and links referred to in it) sets out the terms and conditions on which you may use the SCS.

You may access and use the Spend Comparison Service only if you are an authorised User of the SCS of an In Scope Organisation (Accessing), and personally agree to comply with the terms of this EUAA every time you access the SCS. If at any time you do not agree, you may not access or use the SCS.

By using the SCS, you are accepting and consenting to the terms described in this EUAA and confirming that you accept this EUAA and that you agree to comply with it.

We may make changes at our discretion to the content and features of the SCS, this EUAA, the terms and conditions applicable to any third party tool, product, or service used to manage, analyse, or model any part of the SCS, Raw Data, Cleansed Data, or Spend Comparison Content, our privacy policy, and any other policies or links applicable to your use of the SCS.

Subject to the scope of the Required Data Submission, we may make any such changes at any time and for any reason without providing notice of those changes to you.

Every time you wish to use the SCS, please ensure that you understand and agree to the provisions that apply at the time. The date of the most current version of this EUAA is set out above in paragraph 1.2.

Your continued use of the SCS after an update to the EUAA has been made signifies your acceptance of those changes. Depending on the update, you may not be able to use the SCS (or any of its functions, or access Cleansed Data) unless you have accepted the new or additional terms.

By submitting data to and using the SCS you warrant that all Raw Data provided by you for verification of identity, access and security purposes is accurate.

It is the responsibility of the In Scope Organisations to ensure that its Users are sufficiently trained in use of the SCS. It is the responsibility In Scope Organisation (Submitting) to ensure that all Raw Data is uploaded as per the current required data submission specification. Failure to upload Raw Data in accordance with the current data submission requirements and specification may result in removing your access.

When you access the SCS, we process information about you. We will only use your personal information in accordance with our transparency notices.

NHS England services and rights and responsibilities are governed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and where applicable, the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. You can read NHS England’s FOIA policy and other information on this topic. 

Please note that requests for information made under FOIA will be reviewed in accordance with the relevant statutory framework and may not be disclosable. Where information relating to organisational purchases is required, contact should be made with the relevant contracting/purchasing NHS Provider. 

By using this SCS you confirm that you are an employee, contractor, agent, or authorised representative of an In Scope Organisation (Submitting) or In Scope Organisation (Accessing), and you are authorised by your In Scope Organisation to submit data and/or access the SCS for undertaking permissible System Use Cases based on the role that you fulfil.

You acknowledge that where we recognise errors, we may on occasion need to require the deletion, recall and resupply of Raw Data. In Scope Organisations (Submitting) agree to cooperate with any such request.

If you access the SCS from outside England, we are not responsible or liable for your compliance with any local laws. We may limit the availability of the SCS to any person or geographic area at any time at our discretion.

You recognise that the SCS is a service with other users, and that capacity may on occasion be limited. You will comply with any guidance as to fair use that may be given by us from time to time. You recognise that we will need to monitor User usage and may need to suspend or throttle usage that is in excess of fair usage or where we consider it may impact other users.

Your use of tools available within the SCS may require you to agree to additional terms and conditions in relation to that feature before it may be used, and will at all times be subject to: (i) us making that feature available to you, and (ii) any controls and/or reasonable use restrictions which we put in place.

A current list of the additional third party terms is set out in Appendix A, and may be updated by us from time to time.

You acknowledge and agree that, with your express and explicit permission, NHS England have the right to use the Raw Data and analysis with third parties to provide market, group, regional and national level insight, undertake the permissible System Use Cases or in connection with the exercise of any of their statutory functions. You warrant that you are the owner of all Raw Data you provide to NHS England or, if any Raw Data belongs to a third party, that you have that third party’s permission to provide the Raw Data to NHS England for the purpose of the SCS and the above stated additional purposes. 

We aim to make the SCS accessible (subject to the controls) and comply with standards which should work on the majority of browsers in use. However, we offer no warranty for the SCS working in any particular browser or configuration. Please note that you may see inconsistencies in the presentation of pages if you are using an older or deprecated version of a browser, or the SCS may not work at all.

In order to use the SCS and/or access certain content, systems, or features of the SCS, you will need to complete a user access request form.

Users must be authorised by their In Scope Organisation (Accessing) to access the SCS based on the role that they fulfil. Access to the public beta (PowerBI-base) version of the SCS is provisioned through your organisational Microsoft user account. Access to the live (Tableau-based) version of the SCS is provisioned through NHS England Applications user registration and related OKTA account. These login details will consist of a user identification name and password. You may be asked to provide additional information as required as part of our security procedures.  

As a minimum, passwords you use to access the SCS must have a level of complexity which ensures they cannot be easily guessed by hackers or malicious software and are in accordance with the Data Services and Protection Toolkit Data Security Standard 9 - IT protection or Government best practice.

We may ask you to change your login details, or manually enter your login details from time to time as a security measure. We do not recommend using biometric data (such as fingerprints or facial recognition) to store your login details if other people can also access your device using their biometric data.

You agree to provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself when registering for and using the SCS and you agree to keep this information up to date and accurate at all times.

Unless directly caused by us, you are responsible for, and agree to hold us harmless from, any unauthorised access or changes made to your login details or account resulting from shared or unauthorised access to your device or other individuals having access to your login details.

You must treat your login details as confidential and you must not disclose it to anyone.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your organisational Microsoft login details or that your access to the public beta version of the SCS has been compromised, you must promptly notify your organisational IT department, following organisational policies and processes.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your OKTA login details or that your access to the live version of the SCS has been compromised, you must promptly follow these steps to report a security issue.

If you cease to be authorised by the In Scope Organisation (Accessing) at any time then you must cease using your login details and accessing the SCS immediately. Your In Scope Organisation (Accessing) is responsible for local administration and shall remove your access.

You may only use the SCS for lawful purposes and use the SCS for permissible System Use Cases in accordance with this EUAA, and agree not to access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt:

• any part of the SCS or any of the data found therein
• any equipment or network on which the SCS is stored
• any software or services used in the provision of the SCS
• any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third-party

You may not use the SCS:

• in any way that breaches this EUAA or any applicable local, national, or international law or regulation
• in any way that breaches intellectual property rights, rights to confidentiality or data protection of any third party
• unlawfully, fraudulently, maliciously, or in any way that is harmful to NHS England or other users, or has any unlawful, fraudulent, malicious, or harmful purpose or effect
• to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with this EUAA
• to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam)
• to knowingly send or transmit any data that contains viruses
• with the login details of another user, or permit any unauthorised person to use your login details to use the SCS
• in any way which would change the SCS or infringe on any intellectual property rights in relation to using the SCS
• in any way which attempts to unencrypt or otherwise intercept any transmission of data to or from the SCS or any applicable third parties
• in any way which could disable or compromise the security of the SCS, or that belonging to any third party, or interferes with the use of the SCS by other parties
• in any way that discloses or identifies patient data and confidential patient information (for example, local source purchase order and invoice processing systems must not contain patient identifiable data nor should this be uploaded as Raw Data into the SCS)

You acknowledge that any intellectual property rights subsisting in or used in connection with the SCS (excluding the Raw Data) shall be and remain the sole property of NHS England, save for intellectual property as owned and embedded in third-party tools that the SCS is built on, as listed in Appendix A.

From the moment the Raw Data is uploaded by You, on to the SCS’s data collection platform: 

• if the Raw Data belongs to you, you hereby assign, all copyrights, patents, trademarks, database rights, and all other intellectual property rights in the Raw Data to NHS England. This assignment shall also function as a present assignment of future rights in the intellectual property rights to the Data
• if any Raw Data belongs to a third party, you license this Raw Data to NHS England for the purpose of the Spend Comparison Service and the additional purposes stated in paragraph 7.6 and under the warranty provided for in that paragraph

You acknowledge that all intellectual property rights in the output data after the Data is cleansed and analysed by NHS England (Cleansed Data) are owned by NHS England but, subject to paragraph 11.2, is licensed by NHS England back to you for the purpose of the SCS and/or in connection with any and all of your functions.

In Scope Organisation (Accessing) must not share the Cleansed Data with any third party (save for other registered Users of the service). In Scope Organisation (Accessing) shall obtain the written approval of NHS England prior to providing the Cleansed Data to any third party. The Cleansed Data can only be used for the defined System Use Cases by In Scope Organisations (Accessing).

For the avoidance of doubt, third parties include, but are not limited to:

• management consultancies, audit firms
• outsource providers, data/systems providers, suppliers/wholesalers
• external procurement service providers, external procurement hubs, external framework providers

The Cleansed Data is for authorised Users only. You are not allowed to extract Cleansed Data from the SCS service and share it with organisations or individuals outside of the NHS (as shown above). This includes Cleansed Data exported to Excel and screenshots of the service.

Your In Scope Organisation (Submitting) may use the Raw Data it provides in accordance with its own governance. Any such use is outside the terms of this service.

Your In Scope Organisation (Accessing) remains responsible for any breach by it of the intellectual property rights of any third party.

Only content which is either owned by an In Scope Organisation (Submitting), or which you are authorised to upload for the purposes set out here on behalf of your In Scope Organisation (Submitting) should be uploaded to the SCS. You and your In Scope Organisation (Submitting) shall ensure that any content uploaded by you does not breach any third party’s rights.

Raw Data submitted to the SCS must exclude personal data. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that patient identifiable data and confidential patient information should be excluded from the data submissions.

We are not responsible for the reliability of Data submitted to the SCS or reliability of any external websites we may link to from the SCS and Spend Comparison Content and do not endorse the views expressed within them. We aim to replace broken links to websites, but cannot guarantee that these links will always work as we have no control over the availability of those websites.

Due to the very nature of the internet we cannot guarantee the SCS or any websites we link to will always be available to you.

To the extent permitted by law, NHS England liability for the provision of the SCS is limited to £100.

For the avoidance of doubt, we will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with: (i) use of, or inability to use, the SCS; or (ii) any loss in connection with any error, omission, defect, virus or system failure.

We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus which may infect your device, computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of the SCS or in relation to your downloading any content or data from the SCS, or on or from any third party website linked to the SCS.

We do not assume any responsibility for the content of third party websites which may be linked on the SCS. Such links should not be interpreted as an endorsement of those linked websites. We will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all other conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to the SCS or any data or content on it, whether express or implied.

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all other conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to the SCS or any data or content on it, whether express or implied.

We do not guarantee that the SCS will always be available or be uninterrupted. Access to the SCS is permitted on a temporary basis.

We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any parts of the SCS without notice and without compensation to you.

We may, at any time, suspend or terminate your login details and/or use of the SCS (in whole or in part) temporarily or permanently. We may do this:

• if we, or a third party which provides some or all of the services related to the SCS, are making repairs, updates, or conducting maintenance on our tools and systems or those related to the third party companies or services
• if we have concerns about the security of the SCS
• if we suspect that your login details have been compromised or used fraudulently or in an unauthorised way
• if we suspect that you may be using the SCS or any data in a fraudulent or unauthorised way or in violation of this EUAA
• if we have to do so in order to meet legal obligations
• if we are prevented from providing the SCS for any reason beyond our reasonable control
• if you have not accessed or used the SCS for a period of 12 months or more
• for any other reasonable cause or factor at our absolute discretion

We will endeavour to give you advance notice of any suspension or termination but may not be able to do so in all circumstances. We will not provide notice to you if providing that notice would compromise our security measures or is unlawful.

You may request the reactivation of your login details if we suspended or terminated your access, but we are under no obligation to do so.

We will not be liable to you if for any reason any part of the SCS is unavailable or inaccessible to you at any time or for any period.

You can terminate your use of the SCS at any time by writing to [email protected] and by no longer using your login details. It is your responsibility to remove any saved login details from your device if you wish to terminate your use of the SCS, or if you change your device or otherwise dispose of it, or if you cease to be authorised by your In Scope Organisation (Accessing).

We do not guarantee or warrant that the SCS will be secure or free from viruses, that the functions of the SCS will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or represent the full functionality, accuracy, or reliability of the materials or data.

You are responsible for configuring your accessing device in order to access the SCS safely. You should use and maintain your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse the SCS by knowingly introducing viruses. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to the SCS, the server on which the SCS or related data is stored, or any server, computer or database connected to the SCS. You must not attack the SCS via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack.

In using the SCS you are giving us, or an agent or representative appointed on our behalf, permission to: (i) carry out an audit at any time and without notice to you in relation to your use of the SCS; and (ii) share information with your In Scope Organisation (Accessing) in relation to that audit and its findings.

By registering to use the SCS and receiving login details, you are giving us permission to contact you and your In Scope Organisation (Accessing) from time to time by using any of the methods which you have authorised during the registration process. You may update your preference at any time by making the appropriate selection when logged in on the SCS.

You are responsible for keeping us updated if your contact details change. We are not responsible if we are not able to contact you, or if your contact details are out of date.

If any part of this EUAA becomes or is held by a court to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, this will not affect the validity of the remaining provision which will remain in full force and effect.

Ceasing to use the SCS does not affect any provision of this EUAA which is expressly or by implication intended to continue on in effect.

We may transfer our rights and obligations under this EUAA to another organisation at any time and at our discretion. You may not transfer your rights or obligations to anyone else.

No attempt by you to vary this EUAA will be valid.

This EUAA, its subject matter and formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims), and the use of the website, are governed by English law. If you are a body listed in section 9(4) of the National Health Service Act 2006, we both agree this agreement is an NHS contract subject to the provisions of that section, including in relation to the determination of disputes. If you are not such a body, we both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England in respect of any disputes or causes of action arising under these terms and conditions or the use of the SCS.

If you have any queries about the SCS or this EUAA please contact us by email at:

[email protected] 

Ref: NHS Spend Comparison Service EUAA query

NHS England may make certain third party tools, products, or services available to you from time to time which are used in the management, analysis, and/or modelling of any part of the SCS or Spend Comparison Content. In using the SCS and the Spend Comparison Content, you must comply with the end-user obligations contained in such third-party terms and conditions (an initial list is referenced below). 

Your use of the SCS indicates your agreement to: (i) be bound to, and to only use the SCS in accordance with the end-user obligations referenced below; and (ii) not use the SCS in a way which would cause NHS England to be in breach of its obligations in those third-party terms and conditions.

If you have any queries on your obligations under any of these third-party terms and conditions you should contact us as set out in paragraph 19.1 before using the SCS.

Third party entity: Microsoft

Applicable terms and conditions for Microsoft

Third party entity: Okta

Applicable terms and conditions for Okta

Third party entity: Tableau

Applicable terms and conditions for Tableau