Possible £700m of NHS savings identified
Emergency hospital admissions for asthma patients cost the NHS £64m
a year in England |
NHS trusts in England have been told how they can both improve patient care and save £700m a year by increasing productivity.
A report (PDF 1.2MB) by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
sets out ways in which primary care trusts and acute trusts can compare
how
they
perform and look for ways of getting nearer the
average if they are not doing so well. One of the areas identified for
attention is reducing avoidable hospital admissions. The report says
that over £120m a year could be saved if there were fewer admissions
for conditions such as asthma and angina.
These are included in a list of 19 conditions that can be treated outside
hospital and which often lead to multiple admissions each year. They
are suggested as targets for community services that could reduce their
financial impact on the NHS. Emergency admissions for the 19 conditions
cost from £253m a year for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
to £5m for nutritional deficiencies.
Health minister Andy Burnham said: “Cutting the number of avoidable
emergency admissions does not mean poorer services. We know patients
would rather be treated at home than in hospital and by doing this where
it’s appropriate the NHS can save money as well as improve patient
care.”
At the same time, the NHS Confederation published its own report saying
that NHS trust chief executives believe that they have to increase productivity
and cut waste before they can ask the Government for more money.
The confederation’s “Lean thinking for the NHS” report
(PDF 470K) sets out ways of redesigning services to strip out unnecessary
activities and paperwork. For example, using this technique, Bolton Hospitals
NHS
Trust has been able to cut its death rate for patients having hip operations
by a third in nine months. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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