NHS efficiency 'can save £35m'

A Government report, Better Care, Better Value, identified the savings which the county's hospitals and primary care trust could make in a year if they were as efficient as the country's best-performing trusts.

Health Minister Andy Burnham said improving NHS productivity and efficiency could unlock £2.2bn in England, while improving care.

The Department of Health believes reducing the amount of time patients stay in hospital, minimising emergency admissions and improving management of staff sickness could improve value for money and bring "significant benefits" to patients.

Reducing unnecessary surgery and using cheaper drugs to treat cholesterol problems could also yield big savings, said the report.

But managers at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust say they already have a programme in place to identify such savings.

Trust spokesman Helen Peggs said: "The approach set out in these guidelines is the one we have been following in our Performance Improvement and Cost Reduction Programme, launched in May, and aimed at saving £33m."

This includes cutting 600 posts and reducing services at The Horton Hospital, in Banbury.

Ms Peggs added: "We have cut our length of stay from 2.85 to 2.58 days, and increased the percentage of patients who come straight into hospital on the day of their operation, rather than days in advance, from 82 to 87 per cent.

"We have reduced unnecessary delays for patients, so they can be discharged when they're medically fit to leave. We have also increased the number of day-case operations.

"All of these measures have allowed us to close over 130 hospital beds during the past few months and provided us with the capacity to reopen beds if it gets busier over the winter months.

"We believe that these measures are already beginning to save us substantial amounts of money, although our detailed financial calculations differ from those of the Department of Health general calculations."

The DoH report said many operations - including tonsillectomies and lower back surgery - were "often overused" and were carried out on patients who derived "little or no benefit" as a result.

It added that ORH trust, which runs the John Radcliffe, the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, along with The Horton, could save £12.8m a year by reducing the length of patients' stays and increasing day surgery.

Reducing overnight stays before patients' operations would save another £8.9m each year.

No-one from the Oxfordshire NHS Primary Care Trust or the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre was available for comment.

Savings plan

Potential annual savings of £35,395,000 in Oxfordshire NHS spending identified by the Department of Health:

Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust

Reducing length of hospital stays: £12,713,000

Increasing day surgery: £115,000

Reducing pre-operative bed days: £8,946,000

Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Trust

Reducing length of stay: £1,035,000

Increasing day surgery: £75,000

Reducing pre-operative bed days: £792,000

Oxford City Primary Care Trust

Reducing unnecessary surgery: £188,000

Reducing A&E admissions: £357,000

Reducing outpatient appointments: £2,012,000

Cherwell Vale PCT

Reducing unnecessary surgery: £414,000

Reducing A&E admissions: £611,000

Reducing outpatient appointments: £1,845,000

Using cheaper drugs to treat high cholesterol: £210,000

North East Oxfordshire PCT

Reducing unnecessary surgery: £147,000

Reducing A&E admissions: £294,000

Reducing outpatient appointments: £1,122,000

Using cheaper drugs to treat high cholesterol: £35,000

South East Oxfordshire PCT

Reducing unnecessary surgery: £128,000

Reducing A&E admissions: £221,000

Reducing outpatient appointments: £101,000

Using cheaper drugs to treat high cholesterol: £30,000

South West Oxfordshire PCT

Reducing unnecessary surgery: £249,000

Reducing A&E admissions: £284,000

Reducing outpatient appointments: £3,456,000

Using cheaper drugs to treat high cholesterol: £15,000

The area PCTs became a single countywide trust on October 1.