Efficiency

NHS management: in the line of fire

26 January 2012 | Catherine Foot

Hospital boards are finding it difficult to cut costs and maintain standards of health care. They should consider devolving operational decisions to different business units or ‘service lines’ Read more

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Managing the consultants

24 November 2011 | Alan Leaman

The Cabinet Office’s new framework for buying in consultancy services is a significant step forward for taxpayers and the consulting industry alike – but there is still more to do. Read more

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Health and efficiency: from PCT to CCG

15 September 2011 | Judith Smith

Research from the Nuffield Trust suggests that the new NHS clinical commissioning groups will have to perform much better than primary care trusts in determining their spending priorities and achieving cost savings Read more

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Mutuals: where’s the proof?

18 August 2011 | Paul O'Brien

Ministers are keen to promote mutuals as the way forward for the public sector, but there is little evidence to suggest that these will help to improve the quality and efficiency of services Read more...

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‘Staggering’ savings? I don’t think so

2 August 2011 | Colin Talbot

There is nothing ‘staggering’ about Francis Maude’s announcement  of £3.75bn savings other than the audacity of making such inflated  claims Read more

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Services on the line

22 July 2011 | Emma Watkins

We need to transform our public services so that the public can continue to receive high-quality services but at a reduced cost for the taxpayer. We think that part of the answer lies in harnessing the potential of information technology. Read more...

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NHS savings: time for realism

19 July 2011 | Malcolm Prowle

The government’s efficiency target for the NHS is simply wishful thinking. When will ministers realise that you can’t change public services just by issuing orders from London? Read more

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Job cuts: the collateral damage, by Andrew Jepp

21 March 2011 | Andrew Jepp

The latest wave of labour market figures released by the Office for National Statistics painted a worrying picture of UK unemployment, revealing a decline of 45,000 jobs in the last quarter of 2010. Overall, 111,000 ‘general government’ jobs were lost in 2010, 1.9% of the total. Perhaps even more concerning is that 66,000 of these were in local government. Read more...

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Reality check on NHS reforms, by Anita Charlesworth

10 March 2011 | Anita Charlesworth

The period from 2011 to 2014 is likely to be the most challenging ever faced by the NHS.  The new Operating Framework requires primary care trusts to hold 2 per cent of their allocations with SHAs. Allowing for this, the Nuffield Trust calculates that the recurrent resource available to PCTs to spend in 2011/12 will fall by 2.3 per cent on average in real terms, with a minimum cut of 0.3 per cent for some PCTs and as much as 2.5 per cent for others. Read more...

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Don’t shoot the messengers, by Zoe Gruhn

9 March 2011 | Zoe Gruhn

Bureaucrat bashing is, for many, an attractive and enjoyable blood sport. It is built into the DNA of certain parts of Fleet Street, providing easy targets as the hapless bureaucrats have no real means of defending themselves. Read more...

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