NHS waste exposed by seven hospitals saving £400,000 on gloves
SIR – Seven hospitals save £400,000 on rubber gloves alone by grouping together (report, April 2). It is unbelievable that trusts have been buying alone.
The NHS, with its huge buying powers, should have a central base that handles all buying. Each trust would place orders with the base and not deal with suppliers themselves. In this way, the central base would build an expertise to obtain the very best prices. Suppliers would deliver goods to the ordering hospital, as normal.
The cost of setting up the system would soon be recovered by savings. It seems the NHS is in great need of the principles of good practice used by industry.
This power of scale should also be used when talking to the pharmaceutical industry. B F Hunt
Broadstone, Dorset
SIR – While it is laudable that a group of hospitals in Sheffield have joined forces to buy products in bulk, why hasn’t this been standard practice for years? No privately run business would allow such waste of resources. Jena Pearson
Garstang, Lancashire
SIR – In her latest announcement of a long-term funding boost for the NHS, the Prime Minister is quoted as saying “funding is not the only answer”. I would go further and say that if funding is the answer then the wrong question is being asked.
The individuals responsible for dispersing the funds do not have it in their DNA to make the correct decisions. Like senior management in so many state concerns, they have never had to generate the funds they are spending and thus take no care as to whether the money is wasted.
They know that the taxpayers’ tap will be turned on by politicians desperate for votes to “save the NHS”. So they have no real motivation to save money.
By real motivation, I mean the sure and certain knowledge that failure will mean that they lose their jobs, as would happen in the commercial world – the world that provides the money they waste.
With this sort of management, is it any wonder that the healthcare professionals get so frustrated with all the wastage they see? Robin Humphreys
Exmouth, Devon
SIR – I found the statement by Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, last week confusing. He seemed to imply that future funding for the NHS was all about higher taxes. He has made it clear in the past that it is not all about money and in his words “the NHS is not sustainable in its present form”.
I presume that he will set out his proposals for radical reform of the NHS shortly, probably to coincide with proposals for reform of the social care system. I have to say that he shows little sign of urgency at a time when some say that the NHS is in crisis. Martin Greenwood
Fringford, Oxfordshire