“To implement change successfully, first engage your staff”.
To this end, the trust has launched a staff competition for suggestions on how to save £15 million. Stage one is to think of a name for the new campaign - something which seamlessly combines the concepts of fantastically top-flight hospital and pathetically inadequate budget in one catchy phrase.
My suggestion of “NHS lite: we’re slimmer and even safer”, was rejected on the grounds it might upset some of our bariatric patients, which are the only cases we make a profit on.
A lot of the money-saving schemes seem to have one thing in common - they involve other people. So, for instance, the medical staff seem to have it in for nurses with clipboards, and obviously getting rid of managers is very popular. Other groups, however, have posted the following suggestions. “Abolish merit awards and discretionary points”. “Audit SPA time”. “No pay progression for three years”. “Sack all the orthopaedic surgeons” (OK, that one was me). “Stop operating on people who make themselves ill by eating too much”. And “try turning the office lights off now and again”.
I really hope the executive isn’t relying on this competition for serious ideas - otherwise we’ve got a serious problem.
All this is just tinkering round the edges. There are limits to what individual trusts can do to save this amount of money, especially those which are locked into expensive PFI contracts. What needs to happen is some policy changes from our government, and top of the list must be calling a halt to any more of these PFI deals.
Figures recently released showed that London PFI contracts amount to six times the value of the buildings they’re paying for.
Second to go must be any further expenditure on ICATs and ISTCs, which have been an incredibly expensive waste of taxpayer’s money.
Third, get a grip of the drugs budget by increasing generic prescribing and regulating pharmaceutical companies so that new drugs aren’t overpriced.
After that, they could perhaps take a look at the NHS’ legal budget - especially the non-clinical litigation bill. Every year hospitals have to pay out tens of thousands of pounds for staff, visitors and patients who’ve slipped on wet floors, stubbed their toe on door lintels, or had polystyrene ceiling tiles fall on their head (I kid you not). Why not put a strict cap on all this, so that we can spend the money on actually looking after patients.
Last week the CBI, whose membership might possibly include some individuals involved in private health care provision, claimed that megabucks could be saved by providing care for patients out of hospital and near their homes.
They don’t explain how using taxpayers’ money to build brand new “polyclinics”, doubtless run by the private sector, to replace existing outpatient departments, actually benefits patients or taxpayers. Nor, unless they plan to build one on every street corner, do I see how it equates to bringing treatment “nearer to the patients’ homes”.
The truth is that the current NHS funding crisis is being seized upon by diverse groups to push their own particular ideology, without actually justifying how it would benefit patients or save money. In other words, look out for passing bandwagons.
Read another blog on how the NHS could save money.
It might not be popular but we’ve got to regionalise more specialist services. It’ll save money and raise quality and probably get a load of local MPs kicked out (so unlikely to happen).