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Can simple changes dramatically reduce wastage in the NHS?

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Can simple changes dramatically reduce wastage in the NHS?

Jacqui Fletcher
14 March 2017

It seems that everywhere we look there are stories about the funding crisis in the NHS and how we must make savings. Now, I love the NHS it’s been part of my life for over half of my life so I want to do what I can to save it, but the more I look the more I think: we waste such a lot of money, perhaps if we wasted less we would have to save less? Take, for example, the paper by Guest et al (2016), which identified how few patients have a proper assessment, diagnosis and treatment and therefore fail to heal for a year … or 2 years … or even longer — if we just provided their care appropriately in the first place, how much money would we save? I hear examples from clinicians all the time of local activities that save significant amounts of money — if we all did them, it would really make a difference.