Tackling wide variation could deliver benefits for patient care and better value for money. Improved NHS productivity and better efficiency could unlock resources worth ?2.2bn for the NHS and improve patient care at the same time, Health Minister Andy Burnham said today.
The ‘Better care, better value’ indicators show trust-by-trust performance across a number of key efficiency and productivity indicators. They will help the NHS identify and share best practice throughout the health service and improve efficiency and productivity.
The indicators highlight how reducing the amount of time patients stay in hospital, minimising the level of emergency admissions to hospital and better management of staff sickness and turnover could improve patient care and value for money. Key finding include:
There is variation across the country in the efficiency and productivity of the NHS and significant benefits to patients could be delivered if Trusts learnt from best practice.
Reducing unnecessary admissions could unlock over ?348m. For example, the NHS spends ?1.3bn a year on admissions for patients with common ailments – such as asthma and angina often resulting in unplanned admissions to hospital. This can be worrying for patients and by better managing such patients in a community setting Trusts could improve both patient care and NHS efficiency.
Reducing wasted bed days could improve patient care and release ?510m a year – freeing up beds for other operations. For example, some trusts admitted very few (around 10%) of patients the day before their operation whereas for others the rate was more than 60%.
Improving the discharge process so that patients are discharged when they are ready – not when the system is could deliver better patient care and release ?975m. Currently there is wide variation in the average length of stay in hospital for particular treatments.
Andy Burnham said:
“Productivity is about working smarter, not harder – and improved efficiency will deliver both better patient care and better value to the taxpayer.
“With record investment and a programme of reform delivering improvements to patients – waiting times at their lowest ever, improved access to cancer treatment, and increasing choice for patients across a range of care – it is only right we work with the NHS to improve its productivity.
“We know that for every challenge the NHS faces, someone else in the NHS has a solution. Enabling trusts to compare themselves to other organisations in this way gives local staff the opportunity to identify where they should be focusing their efforts to improve services. It’s right that the centre supports local trusts to develop services in this way.”
Bernard Crump, NHS Institute said:
“These indicators will help NHS clinicians and doctors compare their organisations to the best performing ones and identify where the largest improvements in care and value can be made – to the benefit of patients and the public alike.”
The Indicators have been selected on the basis that they are areas that could have the most impact on patient care.
The Department of Health will be providing this information to the NHS on a quarterly basis. NHS Trusts will be informed how they compare to similar organisations to help them identify to best practice and identify areas of underperformance so they can put plans in place to tackle it. The productivity opportunity for each indicator is calculated by assuming that organisations improve their performance to that of the top 25% of organisations for that particular indicator. There is a full explanation of the way in which the productivity opportunity is calculated on the front of each Indicators pdfs.
A breakdown of the productivity opportunity for the clinical indicators@
a. Bed days saved by reducing variation in Length stay ?975m
b. Reduced emergency admissions ?348m
c. Reduced variation in outpatient referrals ?278m
d. Management of surgical thresholds ?73m
e. Increased rates of day case procedures ?16m
f. Reduction in preoperative bed days ?510m
i. TOTAL ?2.2bn