Medical supplies

What public buyers purchase

Hospitals buy all year round, and most of what they buy is consumed within days: dressings, gloves, syringes, catheters, drapes and gowns, collection bags, dental and orthopaedic supplies, paper products. Alongside the consumables come medical furniture, patient-monitoring equipment and capital devices bought less often and on longer cycles.

In the CPV the category is 33100000 Medical equipments, with 33140000 Medical consumables and its subdivisions covering the consumables themselves, 33190000 Miscellaneous medical devices and products, 33192000 Medical furniture and 33199000 Medical clothing. Contracts are usually multi-year frameworks split into many lots, and increasingly run by purchasing bodies rather than single hospitals. In France, UniHA is the national hospital purchasing group and Resah is a central purchasing body open to contracting authorities in the health, medico-social and social sectors. In England, NHS Supply Chain sources and delivers products for NHS trusts.

How distribution works

Who wins depends on the product. For capital equipment, manufacturers often sell direct through a local subsidiary or an exclusive specialist dealer. For consumables, the winners are frequently hospital supply wholesalers and distributors: they consolidate many manufacturers into one catalogue, hold stock near the hospitals, deliver to ward level and handle the tender administration across hundreds of lots. Purchasing bodies may also run logistics themselves and contract with manufacturers directly for high-volume lines.

For a manufacturer of consumables or medical furniture, the realistic route is the distributor that already holds lots with the hospitals or purchasing bodies in the target country. Award notices on TED name those winners and show the category, so a distributor that repeatedly wins dressings or gloves lots across a region is visible from the public record. Cresques uses that evidence to show who sells a category where; it does not help you bid.

What distributors expect

Medical distributors carry regulatory responsibility for what they place on the market, so their first questions are about compliance:

• CE marking under Regulation (EU) 2017/745 (the Medical Device Regulation), with the EU declaration of conformity, notified-body certificate where the class requires it, and the technical documentation needed to answer a tender. A legacy device with a valid certificate under the old directives may stay on the market until 31 December 2027 (class III and implantable class IIb) or 31 December 2028 (other class IIb, class IIa, sterile or measuring class I), subject to conditions (Regulation (EU) 2023/607). In vitro diagnostics such as diagnostic kits and specimen tubes fall under Regulation (EU) 2017/746 instead, with transition dates of 2027–2029 by class (Regulation (EU) 2024/1860). Since 10 January 2025 a manufacturer must also give advance notice of a supply interruption that could seriously harm patients (Article 10a).
• Unique device identification and labelling in the local language, instructions for use, and registration data the distributor must keep.
• A vigilance and recall process the distributor can rely on, with a named contact.
• Evidence a buyer can score: clinical data or equivalence where relevant, test reports, sustainability information and packaging details.
• Supply continuity: hospitals cannot run out, so a distributor will ask about capacity, second sources for raw materials and lead times before it commits a lot to you.
• Samples for evaluation by clinical staff, and a willingness to support product training on the ward.

For Great Britain, the MHRA currently accepts CE-marked devices on the GB market under transitional arrangements that run to mid-2028 or mid-2030 depending on the device and the EU legislation it complies with, and between 16 February and 10 April 2026 consulted on recognising CE-marked devices indefinitely; as of October 2026 the outcome has not been published, so the current deadlines still apply. A GB distributor will expect you to know which deadline applies to your product.

Markets to start with

France. National purchasing groups (UniHA, Resah) plus regional hospital groups, served by established distributors. B2B e-mail to a company's generic address (info@, contact@) needs no consent under CNIL guidance, so a first approach by e-mail with regulatory documents attached is practical.

Germany. A hospital market with purchasing cooperatives and a dense distributor network. E-mail advertising without prior express consent is unlawful; use letters, medical trade fairs and introductions.

UK and Ireland. NHS Supply Chain is a central route to NHS trusts in England, and above-threshold awards appear on Find a Tender rather than TED. Unsolicited e-mail to companies is permitted with sender identity and an opt-out. Ireland remains under the EU regime and on TED.

Netherlands. Hospitals buy individually and through purchasing cooperatives, with high expectations on sustainability and data. Unsolicited commercial e-mail requires prior consent, including from businesses; begin with post, a fair or an introduction.

Nordics. Regional health authorities run large consolidated tenders and publish award notices on TED (Norway through the EEA). Check each country's rules on commercial e-mail before the first message.