CONSULTANCY
A report has analysed offi cial fi g- ures to show that the NHS could save up to £1bn through a better use of its land.
Currently two million square me- tres of land owned by the health service is either unoccupied or under-used and maintenance costs, including cleaning and electricity, could be cut if the NHS demolished redundant buildings on that land.
Total running costs for the NHS are estimated to be about £7bn per year.
The author of the study, Conor Ellis, from consultants EC Harris, said: “Like any system undergoing so much change, this is a testing time for the NHS.
“There may be many months spent fi ne tuning the current Health Bill, not least due to the intensifying opposition, but this should not stop legitimate and
necessary changes being made to reduce expenditure on the NHS estate and to improve service de- livery.”
However, the fi gures do suggest the NHS is
already heading in
the right direction: the amount of unused land dropped by a million square metres between 2008/9 to 2009/10, helping to cut costs.
The report also ranged more widely on Trust performance, con- cluding that the gap between the best and worst performing NHS Trusts is still too high.
EC Harris said: “For example, for total occupancy costs (i.e. hard and soft facilities management and energy costs) the best per- forming fi ve organisations out- perform the NHS mean by 24% in Acute, 41% in Mental Health and 54% in Primary Care Trusts, so many Trusts could effec- tively make over £1m savings by achieving average performance.”
The report also recommends ra- tionalising the supply chain, better procurement of consumables and equipment, selling off land to real- ise capital assets, and demolishing unviable facilities to save millions in servicing and energy costs.
The annual EC Harris report on NHS Service and Estate Effi ciency
was co-authored by Conor Ellis, Ed Baldwin and Dr Rachel Dick from EC Harris’s Health Sector Team. Data was analysed from a range of sources including the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, the Estates Return Information Collection, and EC Harris’ own NHS effi ciency review data.
Six companies and organisations have won the fi rst ever awards for achieving high standards in occu- pational health services.
The companies and organisations have
met standards of the SEQOHS
accreditation (Safe
Effective Quality Occupational Health Service), run by the Royal College of Physicians on behalf of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.
By meeting these standards, they have shown that they are able to maintain and improve the quality of people’s health while in work.
The fi rst six companies and or- ganisations receiving the awards are:
Healthwork Ltd Manchester RPS Mansfi eld Nottinghamshire OHC Consultancy Ltd Halesowen West Midlands Working Fit Ltd Dover
Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foun- dation Trust Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital
Dr Olivia Carlton, President of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, said: “It is a major step forward to have occupational health services accredited for the fi rst time.
“This is very good news for the health of the working age popula-
tion. SEQOHS has been well re- ceived by the occupational health community and it has the poten- tial to make a real difference to the quality of services.
“The Faculty of Occupational
Medicine is proud of this achieve- ment and my thanks go to Paul Nicholson who has led the devel- opment of the scheme and to the SEQOHS team at RCP who have done an excellent job.”
national health executive Jul/Aug 11 | 73
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