Despite increases in resources it has been announced by a Parliamentary Report that NHS productivity in the last decade has fallen. The report from the Office of National Statistics has stated that the NHS productivity has fallen by close .2% each year since 2000 and in hospitals by an average of close to 1.5%, all this while government spending for NHS increased 70% from 2000/01 to 2010/11 from £60bn to £102bn.
Taxpayers have received less for each pound spent even though the quality of health service has improved due to increased spending, that from Chair of the Committee of Public Records the Rt Hon. Margaret Hodge MP and this trend needs to change in order to meet the target of achieving a savings of £20 billion each year.
The reports said that performance management had not been handled by clinical staff with regard to efficiency or cost in order to focus on the quality of care. The report was also critical of the DH for not identifying the efficiency or inefficiency of some hospitals even though they offered similar services.
The position of consultants was defended by Dr. Paul Flynn BMA’s Consultants Committee Deputy Chairman who was critical of the report. Some of the most important improvements that took place in the NHS were forgotten about because of crude measures of productivity
Consultants salaries have been frozen for the past two years even thought the report talked about there be significant pay raises. If the NHS is to reach its goal of efficiency we agree there needs to be new ways of working but knee-jerk reactions like cutting consultants time spent on developing new services will be counterproductive in the long term.
