Revealed: £2billion epidemic of waste that’s putting NHS on the critical list
AN EPIDEMIC of waste costs the NHS more than £2billion a year, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today.
Hospitals across the country are routinely paying above the odds for everyday items such as toilet rolls, office paper and detergent wipes.
And they are burning further cash through costly mistakes such as failing to maintain equipment properly and making erroneous payments to staff. Our revelations come a week after we told how one hospital – the Royal Berkshire in Reading – almost paid £855 for a simple blackout blind. A matron put paid to that outrageous bill by visiting a local branch of Homebase and buying one for £22.95 instead.
But numerous examples of profligacy litter the Health Service at a time when many hospital trusts across England are desperately short of cash and some are being forced to ration operations.
In one of the most absurd cases of waste, we discovered hospital staff using Royal Mail to send documents to colleagues along the corridor rather than the free internal mail system. We can also reveal that: Some hospitals have been paying twice as much for loo roll, A4 paper and wet wipes as others;
Several have had to junk drugs worth tens of thousands of pounds because of faulty fridges;
Some have written off overpayments to staff – which the employees themselves did not flag up – with one NHS trust signing away more than £50,000 to one person.
Former Ministers who have tried to tackle the problem believe the waste is costing the NHS at least £2billion a year – and perhaps as much as £5billion.
Even at the lower end, £2 billion would fund the construction of four or five major hospitals a year, or pay for 90,000 extra newly qualified nurses, or 36,000 salaried GPs.
Last night, former Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter said NHS managers were costing the Health Service dear by failing to get the best prices for medical supplies. He also accused companies of ripping off the NHS by insisting on secret deals which prevented one hospital trust from telling another what it had paid.
Dr Poulter said: ‘Procurement might not be the sexiest subject, but it is vitally important that the NHS drives a hard bargain.
‘Every pound that can be saved on basic medical supplies is a pound that can be spent boosting the workforce or funding a life-changing new drug. Better buying saves lives.
‘Unfortunately, the sad fact is, too often NHS buyers haven’t got a clue if they are overpaying, because firms are doing all they can to keep their prices secret.’
Startling examples of price differences are found in the ‘NHS Procurement Atlas of Variation’.
It shows City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust paid £66.72 for a 100-pack of toilet rolls, or around 66p a roll. That is almost double the £34.14 paid by neighbouring North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.
If staff at either trust had gone to Tesco they could have stocked up on nine-packs of Spring Force toilet roll, which sell for £2 – or 22p a roll.
The price difference for A4 paper is even starker.
2Gether NHS Foundation Trust in Gloucestershire paid £4.34 per 500page ream – more than double the £1.84 paid by Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. It is a similar story with detergent wipes, with Croydon Health Services NHS Trust paying £2.60 a pack, while the Plymouth Hospitals trust pays just £1.38.
Procurement is not the only problem. Using Freedom of Information requests, we have also found how NHS trusts have written off millions of pounds due to drugs waste and salary overpayments. East Kent Hospitals wrote off £1.5 million because of a
‘Firms are doing all they can to keep prices secret’
problem with a ‘cleanroom’ in 2014-15, and another £437,515 in 2015-16.
When a fridge used to store medicines at University Hospitals Birmingham malfunctioned, drugs worth £239,697 had to be thrown out.
A similar problem, with a faulty fridge thermostat at United Lincolnshire Hospitals, led to drugs losses of £77,000. Rather than continuing to chase an employee paid £51,060 too much, Frimley Health Foundation Trust in Surrey wrote it off, as did Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust in a similar instance, costing £6,130.
Last night NHS Improvement, the quango responsible for financial matters, claimed major steps were being taken to cut waste, after a damning report by Labour peer Lord Carter was published a year ago.
A spokesman said: ‘Lord Carter’s report showed that £5 billion of efficiencies can be made if each hos- pital operated as efficiently as good performers. Since the report, NHS Improvement has been helping hospitals to implement the recommendations by supporting them to understand where they need to improve.
‘This programme is progressing at pace across every area of the hospital, and we’re pleased with the demonstrable enthusiasm being shown by NHS clinical leaders. Initiatives such as Getting It Right First Time have provided better outcomes for trauma and orthopaedics patients while also generating almost £50million in efficiencies.’
He said a new ‘benchmarking tool’ being developed showed that up to £270million could be saved per year if NHS trusts secured the best prices for most products. He added: ‘It will provide full transparency and the ability for NHS Improvement to see what prices trusts are paying suppliers.’
Do you know of any instances where the NHS has squandered money or resources? Email us confidentially at nhswaste@mailonsunday.co.uk.