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Are the new efficiency targets achievable?

Posted in: Budget 2009 | Policy and Finance

allocations, budget, darling, efficiency, finance, IFRS, recession, savings, tariff

21-Apr-2009 5:30 pm

Sally Gainsbury

Sally Gainsbury

Posts: 1

The Treasury has outlined £15bn worth of public sector efficiency savings which it wants met by 2013-14. This can be made up by cutting back office and IT spending by a fifth each and the procurement and estates bills by six per cent, it says. On Wednesday the budget is expected to put a figure to the NHS’s share of this. But are efficiency savings of this order possible? Can they be made without damaging patient care?

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Anonymous

Anonymous

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25-Apr-2009 8:47 am

Yes and No.
Cutting well designed and well deployed IT applications which are often transformational in quality and efficiency gains would be self defeating.
Conversely, poorly conceived, badly designed and/or deployed applications waste even larger sums of money. Shibboleths like the Choose and Book system and the 18 week access targets are prime candidates for politically independent audit for cost benefits.
It is time Information (IT & Informatics) was moved out of its traditional home within Finance Departments in acute Trusts and recognised to be an asset class in its own right; second only to HR in importance, and given the local support and infrastructure it deserves. That this asset (information) should be owned locally but managed by inflexible and often inaccessible national 'service' providers like Fujitsu/BT, CSC etc is questionable.

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Anonymous

Anonymous

22-May-2009 4:09 pm

The only way to save money in the Public Sector in regards to Estates is for all public sectors to start to work together. What do I mean?
Police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance Service, Councils, PCTs, MOD, the list goes on.
If I look locally we could site a lot of things together. It would save on space, with Police on site at a Hospital improve security. Your services actually might work together, go forbid!
The problem with Government no one thinks out of the box!

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