Who buys
| Body | What it buys | How |
|---|---|---|
| National Health System hospitals (more than 120 units) | Pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, reagents, medical equipment, food, cleaning, security, catering, maintenance, IT | Their own tenders and direct awards, call-off contracts under central agreements |
| Health regions (7 ΥΠΕ) | Joint purchases for the hospitals and health centres of their region | Single tenders per region |
| ΕΚΑΠΥ, National Central Health Procurement Authority | Central procurement of pharmaceuticals, supplies and services for the whole system | Framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems |
| ΕΟΠΥΥ, the national health insurance organisation | Health services, high-cost pharmaceuticals, consumables for insured persons | Contracts with providers, service tenders |
| Ministry of Health and supervised bodies (ΕΟΔΥ, ΕΚΑΒ, ΕΟΦ, ΟΚΑΝΑ) | Equipment, IT, specialist services | Tenders, often with EU funding |
Military hospitals, university hospitals and private law bodies such as Onassis and Papageorgiou follow the same law but have their own procurement departments and often their own practices.
The CPV codes of health
Health purchases are concentrated in a few divisions of the CPV vocabulary, which are nonetheless among the richest in codes:
- 33 Medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and personal care products. The largest division: 33100000 medical equipment, 33600000 pharmaceutical products, 33140000 medical consumables, 33190000 miscellaneous medical devices, 33690000 various medicinal products.
- 85 Health and social work services. Medical services, laboratory services, sterilisation services.
- 50 Repair and maintenance services. Especially 50400000 maintenance of medical equipment, a large and steady category.
- 90 Sewage, refuse and cleaning services. Building cleaning and management of hazardous medical waste.
- 15 Food and 55 Catering services. Meals for patients and staff.
- 38 Laboratory equipment and 48 Software for laboratories and information systems.
In hospitals miscoding is more frequent than average, because the same consumables are recorded sometimes as medical devices, sometimes as consumables and sometimes as personal care products. Monitoring the whole of division 33 is safer than monitoring individual codes.
How purchases are made
Centrally
ΕΚΑΠΥ, established by Law 4472/2017 and supervised by the Ministry of Health, draws up the planning of central purchases, keeps the electronic health procurement platform with registers of products, suppliers and prices, and runs central tenders for the categories it decides to centralise. The result is usually a framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system, from which hospitals draw through call-off contracts. Whoever is not inside the agreement cannot sell the item to any hospital in the system for its whole term.
Per hospital
For whatever has not been centralised, each hospital draws up its own annual plan, approved by its health region, and runs its own tenders, open above 30,000 euros and direct awards below. Urgent needs, frequent in hospitals, are met by negotiation without publication on grounds of urgency. Hospital payments have a deadline of 60 days instead of 30.
The price observatory
For medical supplies and medical devices a price observatory records award prices per item. Tender documents often set the observatory price as the maximum acceptable bid, and a higher bid is rejected. Before pricing, check the observatory price of your item.
The particularities you need to know
- Samples. Tender documents for medical supplies often require samples with the bid, assessed by clinicians. The deadline and place for lodging samples are separate from the electronic submission.
- Certifications. CE marking under Regulation (EU) 2017/745 for medical devices, registration in the national device register, ISO 13485 for manufacturers, a wholesale licence for pharmaceuticals. Incomplete documentation is the most common reason for technical rejection.
- Lots. Supply tenders are divided into dozens or hundreds of items with separate award per item. You can bid for three items out of two hundred.
- Duration. Contracts are often annual with an option to extend, so the same tender comes back every year or two, on a predictable calendar.
- Payments. Hospitals hold most of the public sector's overdue debt, about 1.6 billion euros in 2026. The delay differs dramatically from hospital to hospital, and ΚΗΜΔΗΣ shows which pays when. See the guide on when the public sector pays.
Where they are published
All hospital tenders above 1,000 euros are recorded in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ and conducted in ΕΣΗΔΗΣ above 30,000 euros. Above 216,000 euros they are also published in TED. Most hospitals also keep a tenders page on their website and their decisions are posted in Διαύγεια. Monitoring 120 websites is not realistic, so ΚΗΜΔΗΣ, filtered by CPV division and type of body, is the only practical source.
The GOVADI platform tracks every hospital, health region and ΕΚΑΠΥ as a separate contracting authority with its own profile: what it buys, from whom, at what award price and how fast it pays. Tenders matching your codes arrive scored, and ΕΚΑΠΥ framework agreements are flagged as such.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find hospital tenders?
In ΚΗΜΔΗΣ, filtered by the health CPV codes and the type of body, and in ΕΣΗΔΗΣ for electronic tenders above 30,000 euros. Central tenders are published by ΕΚΑΠΥ. Each hospital also keeps its own tenders page, but monitoring 120 websites is not practical.
What is ΕΚΑΠΥ?
The National Central Health Procurement Authority, a public law body established by Law 4472/2017 and supervised by the Ministry of Health. It runs central tenders for pharmaceuticals, supplies and services on behalf of all public hospitals, mainly through framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems.
Within how many days do hospitals pay?
The legal deadline for health bodies is 60 days instead of 30. In practice hospitals hold most of the public sector's overdue debt and delays vary widely from hospital to hospital.
What is the price observatory?
A register of award prices per item of medical supplies and medical devices. Hospital tender documents often set the observatory price as the maximum acceptable bid price.
Which CPV codes concern hospitals?
Mainly division 33 (medical devices, pharmaceuticals, consumables), 85 (health services), 50 (equipment maintenance), 90 (cleaning and waste), 15 and 55 (food and catering) and 38 and 48 (laboratory equipment and software).