eBay - NHS: Platform development for optimal distribution of personal protective equipment

The NHS (National Health Service) as the central health care system in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, had no way at the beginning of the Corona pandemic, no system that would allow you to understand how much need there was for PPE at each hospital, and thus how much material should be sent to the hospitals. The options for a solution included either distributing the same amount of masks and other protective equipment to all facilities equally, (disadvantage: the actual need could not be mapped), or creating a technical solution that captured the need for materials and thus optimized the distribution of goods. Due to the tight situation, it was decided to quickly develop a technical solution.

eBay agreed to contribute its knowledge and technical expertise, as well as to provide products and thus act as a product source. Due to the already long lasting cooperation, we were able to cover the technical part.
After curation and selection of products, these were brought into a system. A customized eBay-NHS platform was created, which enabled NHS staff to order equipment. In this way, an optimal coverage of needs could be created.

Speed and efficiency were paramount in this project, as at the time it was not possible to foresee the time scale of the pandemic. A first version of the platform was to be available after only 10 days and the final version was to be published after another 4 weeks. Already in the pilot phase, more than 40,000 goods were distributed.

To date, more than 2 billion PPE parts have been distributed in the best possible way through the platform. The project, in compliance with the guidelines and specifications, can be considered a success.