NHS wastage

[Resident]

NHS wastes BILLIONS every year.

I remember reading an article that excluding medication waste & it stated that on average over 5 years (2013-2018) the NHS had overpaid/wasted to the tune of 7.8 BILLION (around 5% of their annual budget). The meds wastage was estimated to be another 3 billion on top of that.

Overpaying on basic items such as pens, a basic BIC ballpoint, 10 for a quid at retail, £1.45 EACH to the NHS etc. Trusts being told that they cannot go and seek their own better deals.

Recently the NHS staff has been begging people to supply their own paracetmol/ibuprofen because at retail a box of 16 in Tescos is 24p but that same box for the NHS costs around £8.00, a 3333% mark up.

 

[cheesefest]

A distant relative owns a electrician and gas engineer company. He has been asked by NHS to visit hospitals and GP practices 50-80 miles away.

 

[Jimbeam3678]

This report would argue we have a fairly efficient health system https://healthcareglobal.com/hospitals/most-efficient-health-systems

someone on here linked to a report a few years ago which had us something like the 4th most efficient the world, Google is failing me though.

 

[hurfdurf]

I wonder if these kinds of low effort hit and run posts are a result of private capital trying to undermine and privatise the nhs by trying to stir up criticism of it.

 

[Dis86]

I wonder if these kinds of low effort hit and run posts are a result of private capital trying to undermine and privatise the nhs by trying to stir up criticism of it.

Or are they just people witnessing unacceptable wastage and knowing that money could be spent on better care for more people?

 

[Surveyor]

NHS wastes BILLIONS every year.

I remember reading an article that excluding medication waste & it stated that on average over 5 years (2013-2018) the NHS had overpaid/wasted to the tune of 7.8 BILLION (around 5% of their annual budget). The meds wastage was estimated to be another 3 billion on top of that.

Overpaying on basic items such as pens, a basic BIC ballpoint, 10 for a quid at retail, £1.45 EACH to the NHS etc. Trusts being told that they cannot go and seek their own better deals.

Recently the NHS staff has been begging people to supply their own paracetmol/ibuprofen because at retail a box of 16 in Tescos is 24p but that same box for the NHS costs around £8.00, a 3333% mark up.

Source?

The NHS Electronic Drug Tariff says they pay 94p for 32 500mg paracetamol tablets and £2.94 for 100. Ibuprofen 200mg tablets are £1.17 for 24 and £4.10 for 84.

 

[Dis86]

DP

 

[Dis86]

Source?

The NHS Electronic Drug Tariff says they pay 94p for 32 500mg paracetamol tablets and £2.94 for 100. Ibuprofen 200mg tablets are £1.17 for 24 and £4.10 for 84.

That doesn't account for the supply chain costs however, perhaps that's where the additional cost comes from?

There was a newspaper article I remember a while back about how it cost the army something like £30 to replace a £1 lightbulb due to the supply chain.

https://www.somenews.co.uk/2011/03/22-for-army-lightbulb.html

found a link with the original headline!

 

[Feek]

When my mum died earlier this year, the amount of medication we took back to the pharmacy to be destroyed was eye watering. Part of the problem is inefficiency at the doctors surgery when they issue repeat prescriptions. We told them multiple times that mum had plenty of stock of certain tablets but they just kept sending them over and over again.

Things like paracetamol, we kept. I brought home around 2000 tablets and mums live in carer took another couple of thousand paracetamol with her when she left. I do appreciate that paracetamol are only pennies but I'm quite sure some of the stuff we sent back would have been hideously expensive.

 

[explicit4u]

Was it a cataract op?

I’ve been waiting 18 months for mine. Haven’t even heard anything yet and have been told I won’t for a long time. Backlog is utterly horrendous

22 months my mum had to wait and that was classed as 'urgent' as she was basically blind!

If you can travel try the hospital in Edgware, they - according to our GP - get through them the fastest.

 

[Surveyor]

That doesn't account for the supply chain costs however, perhaps that's where the additional cost comes from?

There was a newspaper article I remember a while back about how it cost the army something like £30 to replace a £1 lightbulb due to the supply chain.

https://www.somenews.co.uk/2011/03/22-for-army-lightbulb.html

found a link with the original headline!

It doesn't say anything about the supply chain. The MOD were seemingly handing over £22.00 in cash for a 65p lightbulb.

A similar comparison is the NHS handing over 94p in cash for paracetamol costing 48p in Tesco.

 

[Dis86]

It doesn't say anything about the supply chain. The MOD were seemingly handing over £22.00 in cash for a 65p lightbulb.

A similar comparison is the NHS handing over 94p in cash for paracetamol costing 48p in Tesco.

As I say, I remember the article and it gave the breakdown as actually resulting from the full procurement process, could have been due to quantities or something daft though.

 

[cheesefest]

When my mum died earlier this year, the amount of medication we took back to the pharmacy to be destroyed was eye watering. Part of the problem is inefficiency at the doctors surgery when they issue repeat prescriptions. We told them multiple times that mum had plenty of stock of certain tablets but they just kept sending them over and over again.

Things like paracetamol, we kept. I brought home around 2000 tablets and mums live in carer took another couple of thousand paracetamol with her when she left. I do appreciate that paracetamol are only pennies but I'm quite sure some of the stuff we sent back would have been hideously expensive.

Similar thing happened with my late grandfather. He was always given a box of 100 soluble paracetamol, even though he only had about 8. My grandmother rang the pharmacy to say they didn’t want any paracetamol! Fell of deaf ears! Then with Fortisips. He was told to have two bottles per day (56 per 4 weeks) and was given 80! Think we had 10
boxes of paracetamol and just under 200 Fortisips

My mother and aunt took the paracetamol home and gave a couple of boxes at their work. With the Fortisips, gave some to a care home. Then a mother of mum’s friend had a stroke. Mum gave her friend a month’s worth as it took ages for her meds to be sorted for home.

 

[theone8181]

When my mum died earlier this year, the amount of medication we took back to the pharmacy to be destroyed was eye watering. Part of the problem is inefficiency at the doctors surgery when they issue repeat prescriptions. We told them multiple times that mum had plenty of stock of certain tablets but they just kept sending them over and over again.

Things like paracetamol, we kept. I brought home around 2000 tablets and mums live in carer took another couple of thousand paracetamol with her when she left. I do appreciate that paracetamol are only pennies but I'm quite sure some of the stuff we sent back would have been hideously expensive.

My Mrs current job is actually trying to save on stuff like this. She used to work at boot and said the sa.e amount medication being returned after death. Iirc my parents took 2 non bags full when my grandma dies. She said the same about ppe wastage, seemingly twice the amount needed gets delivered. I do wonder if private companies do take the puss when supplying the NHS.

 

[kedge]

And to top it all off

It is estimated that fraud and bribery in the NHS costs the taxpayer £1.27 billion a year. That’s enough money to pay for over 40,000 staff nurses, or to purchase over 5,000 front line ambulances.

Trust Board Statement: Countering fraud and bribery in the NHS

 

[Resident]

Source?

The NHS Electronic Drug Tariff says they pay 94p for 32 500mg paracetamol tablets and £2.94 for 100. Ibuprofen 200mg tablets are £1.17 for 24 and £4.10 for 84.

I can't seem to find the original article. IIRC it was a PDF rather than an article now that I think about it. But there are a plethora of sources regarding NHS waste

NHS waste hits £7.6BILLION-a-year with overpriced loo rolls, crutches and wheelchairs never returned

Five examples of NHS Waste

The billions of wasted NHS cash no-one wants to mention

 

[Jean-F]

I wonder if these kinds of low effort hit and run posts are a result of private capital trying to undermine and privatise the nhs by trying to stir up criticism of it.

Well as the OP, I can assure you that I don’t fall into the category of someone trying to undermine and privatise the NHS with my non existent private capital, I was just more than a tad surprised at the flippant dismissal of my admittedly none too strong protestations against an obvious profligate waste of NHS resources.
Boxes of eye drops left over when you’ve finished the course? Toss ‘em in the trash.

 

[Adam_151]

A distant relative owns a electrician and gas engineer company. He has been asked by NHS to visit hospitals and GP practices 50-80 miles away.

I can easily believe it, the problem is that a lot of smaller firms are unable to offer what they want, if they loose power they need someone asap and while it may be counter intruative to send someone to drive 80 miles, if a company is set up for reactive work and they can dispatch someone right away they can be there in a couple of hours. Where as anothe company might be in in the same city, but if you were having some work done would you want the guy to asnwer his phone, pack his tools up and says he hopes to be back in a couple of hours. Even stuff that needs to be attended to in a couple of days time sometimes doesn't happen before deadlines as a lot of firms have schedules that are booked up with what could be termed 'small works' and can't fit the reactive stuff in.

If you don't have much reactive stuff you take on mostly smaller works or larger contracts and don't have anyone able to service reactive stuff in the required time frame, so you don't get on the lists / don't spend time getting on the lists etc. Its only when you have a good percentage of reactive stuff that the schedules become dynamic and you can handle reactive stuff properly (you might have a load of small jobs today , some of which have a deadline until next week, if an urgent comes in at lunchtime and you have to do a 160 mile round trip and kick the afternoons jobs into tommorow, then that is ok), There is not always a firm thats set up appropiatly and approved in the local area, also remember that most firms doing this type of work will have to offer an out of hours service as well and you can understand why its not as easy as the NHS getting the local tradesperson who is 5 mins away from the hospital to do the job!

Its not just the NHS, this happens in private sector firm companies as well!

Where avoidable wastage does happen is the pointless callouts or the ones with a higher priorty than need be, if the toilet light is out and it gets put on a 4 hour response, then chances are that someone is going to have to make a special trip, possibly even out of hours, if it comes with 24 hours then maybe someone is passing near to the area in the morning and can do it then. Do you need to pay a premimum to have it fixed at 8 o clock at night, or can it wait till the morning? or the ones xxxx isn't working, and you get there and someone has caught the switch with a bag and no one has thought to check xxx has been switched on.

 

[theone8181]

I can easily believe it, the problem is that a lot of smaller firms are unable to offer what they want, if they loose power they need someone asap and while it may be counter intruative to send someone to drive 80 miles, if a company is set up for reactive work and they can dispatch someone right away they can be there in a couple of hours. Where as anothe company might be in in the same city, but if you were having some work done would you want the guy to asnwer his phone, pack his tools up and says he hopes to be back in a couple of hours. Even stuff that needs to be attended to in a couple of days time sometimes doesn't happen before deadlines as a lot of firms have schedules that are booked up with what could be termed 'small works' and can't fit the reactive stuff in.

If you don't have much reactive stuff you take on mostly smaller works or larger contracts and don't have anyone able to service reactive stuff in the required time frame, so you don't get on the lists / don't spend time getting on the lists etc. Its only when you have a good percentage of reactive stuff that the schedules become dynamic and you can handle reactive stuff properly (you might have a load of small jobs today , some of which have a deadline until next week, if an urgent comes in at lunchtime and you have to do a 160 mile round trip and kick the afternoons jobs into tommorow, then that is ok), There is not always a firm thats set up appropiatly and approved in the local area, also remember that most firms doing this type of work will have to offer an out of hours service as well and you can understand why its not as easy as the NHS getting the local tradesperson who is 5 mins away from the hospital to do the job!

Its not just the NHS, this happens in private sector firm companies as well!

Where avoidable wastage does happen is the pointless callouts or the ones with a higher priorty than need be, if the toilet light is out and it gets put on a 4 hour response, then chances are that someone is going to have to make a special trip, possibly even out of hours, if it comes with 24 hours then maybe someone is passing near to the area in the morning and can do it then. Do you need to pay a premimum to have it fixed at 8 o clock at night, or can it wait till the morning? or the ones xxxx isn't working, and you get there and someone has caught the switch with a bag and no one has thought to check xxx has been switched on.

I guess you pay a large premium to have someone on call as you're effectively hiring them all the time.

 

[Deleted User 234324]

The NHS doesn't need more money, what it needs is a drastic shake up and serious case of trimming the fat.

If they did all that, they could easily save 30%+ on their current budget. My brothers partner is a senior nurse with over 15 years experience, she quit last year and went into freelance work, doing exactly the same job, on less hours and earning almost twice the money.