‘Pointless’ surgical masks waste NHS cash

Surgical masks and robotic operations are a waste of NHS money, Imperial College has said, after identifying changes the health service can make to save more than £150million each year. Researchers from the Department of Surgery and Cancer found 71 commonly performed procedures or practices that are of high cost but low value to patients, which could be stopped. They include hernia repair operations for people with few symptoms, which cost the NHS £28million a year, but do little to make them feel better.

SURGICAL masks and robotic operations are a waste of NHS money, Impe- rial College has said, after identifying changes the health service can make to save more than £150million each year.

Researchers from the Department of Surgery and Cancer found 71 commonly performed procedures or practices that are of high cost but low value to patients, which could be stopped.

They include hernia repair operations for people with few symptoms, which cost the NHS £28million a year, but do little to make people feel better.

Likewise, using CT scans to diagnose appendicitis was found to have little benefit above and beyond the traditional blood tests and hands-on pressure checks by doctors. Scrapping them could save £3.5million.

The team also discovered that robotic surgery has “little or no advantage” when compared with traditional keyhole operations and said it must be “considered a candidate for disinvestment”. There is also no evidence that infections can be prevented by surgical masks, costing £150,000 a year.

Writing in the British Journal of Surgery, Humza Malik, a surgeon from Imperial College London, said: “An expected £30billion funding gap is expected by 2020 in the NHS. This provides motivation to identify and reduce the use of interventions that deliver little benefit and which could be substituted with less costly alternatives without affecting safety and care. Stopping low-value services represents a significantly greater opportunity for savings than thought previously.”

The researchers, who studied 1,500 papers into the benefits of procedures, found that surgeons were overusing endoscopes – tiny cameras that can fit into small areas of the body – costing the NHS more than £40million a year.

However, patients groups said they were concerned that stripping out some procedures could take away treatments that some found to work.

A Royal College of Surgeons spokesman said: “NHS finances are currently stretched to their absolute limits, so it is important that surgeons look carefully at how they can improve efficiency and scale back surgical interventions that deliver little benefit to patients.

“While the authors of this study have focused on general surgery, the principles could probably apply to every surgical specialty.”