From £1 to £180: how NICE guidance helped us make smarter slide sheet choices

Learn how our evidence-based guidance helped a London NHS trust standardise procurement and generate operational efficiencies.

Evelyn Otunbade is the moving and handling lead at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. She leads on safe moving and handling practices, moving and handling strategy, access to appropriate handling equipment, and develops and delivers training programmes to support staff competence. In this guest blog, she explains how she led implementation of a consistent slide sheet procurement strategy, using NICE’s ready-made evaluation to save her time and build a compelling case for change.

Used in moving and handling practices across healthcare facilities, slide sheets create a smooth surface that enables healthcare staff to move or reposition patients more easily and safely. The NHS spends over £7 million annually on these essential pieces of equipment, with 2.3 million purchased each year through NHS Supply Chain. There are at least 30 companies providing over 187 different slide sheet products to the NHS, with individual costs ranging from just over £1 to more than £180. This makes meaningfully comparing product quality, performance and cost challenging and resource-intensive for busy NHS colleagues.

As the moving and handling lead at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, I've experienced these challenges firsthand. So, I was delighted when I became aware that NICE was developing guidance on slide sheets for moving or repositioning a person. I was keen to get involved and served as an expert adviser during the development process, providing input to NICE’s medical technologies advisory committee.

When the guidance was published in April 2025, I was thrilled. NICE had done the challenging work for me, pulling all the research together into a single, easy-to-use document. I immediately recognised the opportunity it presented to transform our procurement approach and deliver real value for our organisation.

Making clinically and cost-effective procurement decisions

The guidance says that there is not enough evidence to determine whether price variations between various products are justified. It recommends choosing the most appropriate slide sheet based on specific criteria including usage setting, durability requirements and patient characteristics. Crucially, the guidance says that if more than one slide sheet is appropriate, you should use the one that is least expensive.