RECORDS,DOCUMENTS & DATA
Saving money, carbon and paper
Rob Attryde, marketing communications
manager at
Kyocera, explains how taking environmental action delivers cost reduction and increased savings to the NHS.
“As the largest public sector contributor to climate change, it is critical that the NHS rapidly establishes a programme of action to reduce its carbon emissions and play its part in meeting Government targets.” – The Environment Agency.
The NHS does have a Carbon Reduction Strategy, but many trusts simply don’t know where to start. Over the last 15 years the NHS has made strides in trying to reduce its impact on the environment but when the NHS is under pressure to generate efficiency savings of £15-20bn, it is tempting to let environmental issues drop from the priority list.
That is a mistake. There is a way to develop environmentally sound policies that can deliver major savings as well as offer the opportunity to significantly reduce costs. Comprehensively assessing and managing document services properly across a trust is one way to reduce energy use, CO2 emission levels and effectively decrease waste.
Managed Document Services (MDS) is a highly relevant strategy for every NHS organisation that wants to look at its entire potential for cost reduction. Experience shows that MDS can reduce document costs by between 30% and 70%.
ITIL-trained MDS consultants look at the whole process of document management and utilisation within the trust, not just the print outcomes, and optimise the entire document output process – from capturing to archiving, workflows to security and environmental impact.
There is no ‘one size fits all’ MDS solution – each one is as different as the organisation deploying it. However, the potential of MDS is almost unlimited, as the head of IT at one NHS trust explains: “While printing might not be the most glamorous aspect of information technology, it is an essential tool for the NHS. It’s vital that we have a print network that is reliable, robust and that we have tight control over the costs of consumables. We have saved around half a million pounds over three years – which is a significant figure in anyone’s terms.”
It is vital that every resource within a trust
is maximised to maintain high standards of operational excellence. Trusts can host thousands of printing devices across wards, pharmacies, reception areas and within their finance, administration and communications departments. These devices are often from multiple manufacturers and need to be managed efficiently to reduce consumables expenditure.
Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership’s desktop infrastructure co- ordinator Andy Tuke agrees: “We believe that we probably had too many devices on the network, which weren’t being used at the optimum levels. We wanted a way of tracking the devices and identifying those machines being under-utilised which gave us the information needed to rationalise the fleet and save money. Knowing what we’ve got and what it is doing is a great step in enabling us to make the right purchasing decisions going forward.”
Encouraging users to meet Carbon Reduc- tion Targets by changing their behaviour is also simple to implement:
• Always use ‘print preview’ to check the document before printing – especially if you are printing several copies
• Never print something just to read it once
• Always print double-sided • For internal documents, consider printing several pages to a sheet
• Only print the page(s) you need, not the entire document
• Only print the number of copies you actually need
• Reduce the size of the font (or images) rather than letting just a few lines run on to a second page
• Scan and email documents rather than send a hard copy
• Make sure paper- and power-save functions are implemented
• Always turn off devices at the end of the day
Rob Attryde FOR MORE INFORMATION:
T: 0118 931 1500 W:
www.kyoceramita.co.uk
national health executive Mar/Apr 12 | 39
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