NHS hospitals often pay more than they need to when buying basic supplies. A combination of inadequate information and fragmented purchasing means that NHS hospitals’ procurement of consumables is poor value for money.
“The Department of Health is now on track towards providing high-quality out-of-hours services. I am glad to see signs that Primary Care Trusts are getting better at managing their providers.
“However, it is disappointing that there were so many problems in starting the new arrangements and I am concerned that so few providers are meeting their targets for the time it takes respond to patients. And the continuing confusion over whether out-of-hours is supposed to be an urgent or unscheduled care service should be dispelled without delay.”
“I have decided to produce a report for Parliament as the issues raised by this case have wider interest in considering how the pricing of PFI deals may change over time. In this case, the Trust continues to pay a premium on its financing costs for being an early entrant into the PFI market whilst benefiting from the early use of the new hospital and lower construction costs. But other factors may affect price comparisons over time and further analysis of price movements would be valuable.”
Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office, reported to the Scottish Parliament today that there is scope to improve the responsiveness of accident and emergency ambulance services in Scotland and the impact they have on the healthcare of patients. The Scottish Ambulance Service are responsible for ambulance services across Scotland. Their emergency … Read more
This report examines the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) as part of the government’s response to COVID-19 in 2020.
The Department of Health has until recently been focusing on speed of response as a measure of performance of the ambulance service, rather than on clinical outcomes. The service achieves high levels of public satisfaction but there are wide variations in ambulance trusts’ efficiency. The system has not delivered the best value for money to date.
It is important that the services for vulnerable people at the Yarls Wood Immigration Removal Centre are delivered ‘right first time’ and this did not happen here. Steps are now being taken to address the problems but 35% of the recommendations from Her Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons’ 2015 inspection have not yet been implemented.
