Shared services key to saving millions for NHS

Published by GovToday for GovToday in Health and also in Local Government

Speaking with Govtoday, Tony Spotswood, author of the recent QIPP report into NHS efficiency, has spoken of his and the NHS's ambitions to reduce back office costs and deliver more improved frontline services with the possible savings.

The report, which found savings could be made across all sectors of the health service including providers such as foundation trusts, other NHS trusts, and primary care trusts (PCTs),  is a clear message for all NHS organisations to simplify, standardise and share their services.

Speaking to Editor of Govtoday, Scott Buckler, about the report Spotswood said:

The essence of the report is to provide Board’s with practical advice on the potential for savings within their organisation and how to realise these, beginning with benchmarking of individual functions to allow sector comparison and some estimate of the potential for reducing spend and driving up efficiency.

I think most back office functions could historically be categorized as fragmented services. They were often replicated across many organisations. Each organisation provided many of their own back office functions with an absence of robust information, this meant that when we started our work on the report we needed to derive a clear understanding of how much was currently being spent on back office functions within the NHS

The Report highlights a possible £600m worth of savings from simple procedures as shared services and estate management. There are three key strands to the report which Spotswood feels can significantly improve cost effectiveness in the NHS and Health bodies;

There are three key strands to the report, first is organisation: adopting an approach that enables back office function to be simplified secondly there is an approach to standardisation of functions, this will ensure we can drive out unnecessary activity. Thirdly, there is a need for organisations to come together and revise their functions on shared service responsibility. What the report requires on a practical level is for Finance or HR Directors to look in detail at their functions and decide which aspects they need to transform and what aspects can be delivered through shared services.

The full interview can be found at www.govtoday.co.uk/health