Business Solutions Provider Urges NHS To Change

NHS Trusts need to replace inefficient inventory management processes and improve patient level costing reporting if they are to meet the Department of Health’s (DoH) procurement savings target.

This is according to business applications and services provider Advanced Business Solutions.

The latest eProcurement strategy from the DoH commits to generating efficiencies of £1.5bn to £2bn by 2015-16 in a bid to help NHS Trusts gain great control over non-pay expenditure.

It predicts the strategy could save up to £8000 per bed and between £3m and £5m for a 600-bed hospital by improving traceability of stock items and improved procurement performance.

“While NHS Trusts are making progress, some still have to achieve better value from their supply chain if the DoH ambitious targets are to be realised,” claimed Dean Dickinson, managing director at Advanced’s public sector and enterprise division.

“Key to this will be improving inventory management and visibility of spend in order to minimise unprofitable service lines and purchasing anomalies.

“Finance departments and clinicians will only succeed if they have the right technologies in place to automate the processing of accurate and real-time procurement data,” he added.

According to Advanced, patient-level resource management (PRM) solution, integrated into financial management systems, can help facilitate effective patient level costing and resource analytics and stock management.

“Paperless NHS”

If Trusts replace manual, paper-based processes, PRM systems can help glean real-time stock information and correctly forecast inventory requirements to achieve efficiencies by optimising usage, reducing stock holding and unnecessary waste.

“PRM and spend analysis solutions can deliver hundreds of thousands of pounds in annual efficiency savings by replacing manual inventory management process and providing a unified view of spend,” claimed Dickinson.

“These solutions also assist NHS Trusts to adopt a more strategic approach to purchasing to keep costs under control and free up vital funds which can be reinvested in improving frontline care,” he added.

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