ASSET MANAGEMENT
Asset management is incredibly important given the current state of NHS finances, says Kirsty Whyte of Audit Scotland.
Maintaining an adequate asset database is essential for NHS bodies to improve value for money.
I
mplementing a good asset management system can make all the difference when
a trust is trying to sweat its assets to gain as much value from them as possible. It has to know what its assets are, what condition they are in and how long they will work for.
But this is nothing new for Kirsty Whyte, project manager of Audit Scotland’s 2009 report, ‘Asset Management in the NHS in Scotland’.
She told National Health Executive that its recommendations remain hugely relevant.
She said: “We looked at three main areas relating to NHS asset management.
“The first was the strategic direction the Scottish Government was giving to NHS boards in relation to asset management. The second looked at how well boards are managing those assets from a strategic point of view themselves, and the third looked in detail at the NHS estate and how it was being managed.
“In terms of the direction the Scottish Government was providing, we said that whilst the Health Department was provid- ing policies and guidance on asset manage- ment, it still did not cover all types of assets – and that some of the policies in relation to the NHS estate needed to be updated.
“We also found that there was limited monitoring by the Scottish Government
60 | national health executive Mar/Apr 11
into how NHS bodies were managing their assets. NHS bodies are required to under- take a post-project evaluation after they’ve finished projects to ensure that the benefits have been realised, for example if buildings have been put up, that they are suitable for their function.
“However, we found that the Government wasn’t actually calling these in and didn’t know whether all of the NHS bodies were actually undertaking them. Similarly, all NHS bodies are required to develop an as- set strategy for things like their estate, ve- hicles and medical equipment.
“We found that not all NHS bodies had these strategies but that also the Government was not looking to see whether NHS bodies had these in place or not.
“Good asset management is a key part of service delivery and in terms of how NHS bodies were coping themselves, we found that not all NHS bodies have asset strate- gies which were tied into clinical delivery.
“Of course, knowing what condition an as- set is in and its location is also crucial and we found that many boards were only hold- ing very basic information on assets, which didn’t cover these areas.
“This meant that either they didn’t know how suitable or functional their assets were or that their information was out of date. In terms of the specifics of the estate,
we found that the majority of the NHS in Scotland was of satisfactory quality but that around a third would require major upgrading soon.”
In response to this, Audit Scotland recom- mended to the Scottish Government that it needed to provide policies and guidance for every kind of asset, along with updating its property management policy.
Whyte explained: “We also said the Government needed to regularly collect in- formation from NHS bodies on the perform- ance of their assets and that they needed to ensure the momentum was maintained in terms of developing joint working between NHS organisations and other public sector organisations.
“We advised NHS bodies that they needed to develop strategies for each kind of asset and that they needed to develop a corporate asset management strategy that operates as a kind of umbrella, linking their asset man- agement to their clinical service delivery. We also recommended they assessed their estate for things like suitability.”
Audit Scotland has also been taking a look at asset management across the wider pub- lic sector – so NHS bodies in Scotland need to be aware of a whole swathe of recom- mendations.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.audit-scotland.gov.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84