From the Times of London about brilliant National Health Service in the U.K.:
More than 300,000 patients a year are needlessly admitted to emergency surgery beds when they do not need an operation, Professor Briggs’s team found after visiting every hospital in the country.
If all hospitals copied the best units by getting a consultant to run tests quickly, many of these patients would be sent home immediately, freeing up a ward in each hospital and saving the NHS £108 million a year. “I’ve now been to every single trust in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and there is significant waste out there,” Professor Briggs told The Times. “I do not think at the moment we deserve more money until we put our house in order and we actually make the changes that will improve the quality of care.”
Waiting times are lengthening as hospitals struggle to treat rising numbers of patients with finances that have not kept pace with an ageing population. Many in the NHS have used the inconclusive general election result to press the case for more money.
Yet Professor Briggs and the leading surgeon John Abercrombie report that in bowel-cancer surgery alone death rates vary from zero to 14 per cent, while hospitals are spending £23 million a year too much by keeping in patients for ten days when the best send them home in five days.
Some hospitals are paying 350 times more for basic surgical equipment than others for no clear reason, while there is no consensus about the best way to carry out some common procedures.
Jeez.If all hospitals copied the best units by getting a consultant to run tests quickly, many of these patients would be sent home immediately, freeing up a ward in each hospital and saving the NHS £108 million a year. “I’ve now been to every single trust in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and there is significant waste out there,” Professor Briggs told The Times. “I do not think at the moment we deserve more money until we put our house in order and we actually make the changes that will improve the quality of care.”
Waiting times are lengthening as hospitals struggle to treat rising numbers of patients with finances that have not kept pace with an ageing population. Many in the NHS have used the inconclusive general election result to press the case for more money.
Yet Professor Briggs and the leading surgeon John Abercrombie report that in bowel-cancer surgery alone death rates vary from zero to 14 per cent, while hospitals are spending £23 million a year too much by keeping in patients for ten days when the best send them home in five days.
Some hospitals are paying 350 times more for basic surgical equipment than others for no clear reason, while there is no consensus about the best way to carry out some common procedures.
