Chronic waste in the NHS

[Bestcatmum]

If the NHS cracked down hard on waste in the NHS we could all have the pay rise we are after.
Yesterday I did a clinic in the minor injuries unit, the thermometer read 27 degrees all day. There is no way to turn the radiators off there only estates can do it.
We sweltered, we all stank of sweat by the end of the day, the patients complained, we had to fling all the windows open.
I went home with a dehydration headache and a heat headache.
We've been asking for simple things to be fixed and they come and "fix" them, they fail almost immediately, two examples a fire door that has supposedly been fixed multiple times during the last 7 years which still doesn't work, a door handle that has been fixed multiple times over the last 7 years that fell off in my hand last week AGAIN locking me in my clinic, I was locked in for 2 hours until someone came by. there is no phone signal in there.
It costs £100 a time for them to come out and fix something.
I went out to the bins the other day and found hundreds of pounds worth of in date dressings and equipment that had been chucked. I couldn't work out why because they were all in date and intact.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
it is a national disgrace.

www.ippr.org/news-and-media/press-releases/nhs-hospitals-under-strain-over-80bn-pfi-bill-for-just-13bn-of-actual-investment-finds-ippr

Front line nursing and HPC staff have got time to spend doing stuff like this?

This is why managers are needed to manage issues like this but apparently the general public dont like different layers in the NHS, its wasteful apparently

I agree. There seem to be people on this thread who are complaining about stuff like this yet also complaining that there are too many managers.

Isn't the temperature thing partly because of being sure people are comfortable when getting undressed? Disrobing temperature or something like that? Maybe it's cheaper to have a blanket temp rather than individual temps set and monitored for different rooms

Nah it’s just rubbish inefficient buildings & infrastructure. Our clinic hovers at about 28 degrees in winter. Comfortable for …. NOBODY.

I enjoy taking deliveries each month for stock we cannot use. Stock we do not need. Stock that we try to return. The power gate passwords are locked so we can’t cancel stuff. It’s ridiculous.

They also have to wrap everything for theatre in paper sheets, then plastic wraps, the waste is unbelievable.

There aren't really many alternatives to this. The instruments need to stay sterile after sterilisation and before use. Launderable wraps are not used much any more because they are more expensive to process and maintain.

Big metal sealable trays can be used but there's a massive outlay and the weight and size increases the transport costs, and I'm not sure that they are as easy to process as wrapped trays. The NHS isn't really doing investment at the moment, if you hadn't noticed, but it's possible the net zero targets will change the emphasis.

Oh god yes to all this..I have worked in nhs mental health services for over 20 years, in various Trusts. I can’t think of one hospital that had thermostats..They are all ancient systems and either off (freezing) or on (ridiculously baking hot). I have raised it many times and am always told “it’s impossible to change the heating system” . Gah! Such waste!

We don’t have enough storage space in my department.
Therefore we cannot order large amount of stock to keep us going for a while.
We are constantly running out of essential items that we cannot function without. We are constantly paying for speedy delivery and having to courier things from other hospitals who kindly lend us their stock.

My dh broke his leg quite badly a couple of years ago. Before he left the ward, the staff placed an order on his behalf for crutches, and equipment like a commode, perching stool, a raised seat for the loo etc etc. It was delivered the next day by a third party company, all stickered up with 'property of ...' labels.

When dh had healed, we tried to return the equipment but whoever had put the order in hadn't done it correctly and the provider refused to take it back, as they had no way of getting the kit 'back' into their system. What on earth were we supposed to do with it?

In the end, we drove the kit back ourselves and said 'your problem'. We left the crutches propped up against a wall in the reception of our local hospital! It seemed such a waste otherwise, but no one was interested.

Oh and our stock ordering system is crazy.
Person 1: we need this item!
Person 2: makes an order form and prints it off to pass to person 3.
Person 3: scans order form and emails to person 4. Files order form.
Person 4: approves order and emails to person 5.
Person 5: enters details from order form onto computer software. Sends confirmation order is on the system to person 3.
Person 3: orders the items.
Person 6: receives the delivery passes to person 7.
Person 7: unpacks the delivery and tries to figure out which order number it was because no purchase order number is available.
So it’s really hard to keep track of what has been ordered. Impossible if people are off and you can’t ask them. And really easy for deliveries to go missing and not even realise they haven’t arrived.

The OT ordered my dad a special type of toilet frame
the guy come to deliver it carried it upstairs opened bathroom door said it wouldn’t fit

wouldn’t take it back it hadn’t even been in bathroom let alone used
told to dispose of it
shocking

Totally agree. It's not lack of funding that is the problem, it's poor management and silly jobs paying 6 figure sums that could pay nursing staff a decent wage

@WiseUpJanetWeiss ”There seem to be people on this thread who are complaining about stuff like this yet also complaining that there are too many managers.”
I don’t think they are complaining that there are too many managers, just that there are too many managers who don’t seem to be doing their job properly, leading to the hire of ever more layers of management…
As for waste, who in their right mind would order 5 boxes of chest drain bottles (20 bottles per box) to be delivered to a terminally ill patient with a life expectancy of around 4 weeks, then refuse to take the 4 unopened boxes of chest drain bottles back?

Our friend who is a nurse tells us that ONE of the bottles costs the NHS more than £10.00: if that’s true (and I can’t verify it myself) then we had to dispose of more than £950.00-worth of medical equipment on the patient’s death….

The NHS has a huge budget and it gets an appalling level of value from it. Wastage, misspending, financial irresponsibility etc is rife and most other public services are exactly the same. They introduce austerity to tackle overspending but everything just carries on and the only thing that is tightened up on is pay. I also see it daily.

It's not as simple as that.

They would have to be either collected from the patient or have the patient bring them in at their own cost. You need somewhere they can be dropped off, preferably with a person to book them in.

They would need to be cleaned and tested to see they were fit for purpose and then stored somewhere.

My mum used to work at our local heath centre. She said exactly the same thing, ie the amount of wastage was appalling. For instance, there was a cupboard that was stacked high with boxes of stuff that was near the expiry date - gloves, equipment, boxes where only one item had been taken out and then the rest left there. It got cleared out every so often and the items thrown away. Mum ended up asking if she could take a couple of the boxes of gloves home as she used them when she coloured her hair and did jobs around the house. The supervisor said 'take as many as you like, we'll only throw them'.

Staggering

If only we had enough staff to coordinate it all, and Liz Truss and her predecessor hasn't blown all the cash!

@sashh - and the problem with the patient dropping them off at their own cost is what exactly when they have had free, at the point of delivery, healthcare?

I don't see why a system can't be introduced whereby patients pay a deposit, say £20, refundable when they return the crutches, frame, etc.

I did a quick Google search recently and learned that the NHS England budget alone is £153 billion for this financial year. Which for context, is more than the Defence, Home Office and Ministry of Justice budget combined, apparently.

Only an organisation that is badly mismanaged and incredibly wasteful could spend so much and achieve such a poor level/standard of output. So I absolutely agree with your premise.

I just feel like the contract with the taxpayer is now totally broken

We pay our taxes in good faith that there will be decent public services. Yet the money is pissed against the wall, spent with abandon and we are left with unusable public services

OP is totally right, the waste in the NHS is incomprehensible and totally immoral to boot. We all contribute money to this, it is our money, and I find it totally utterly disrespectful to hard working people that our money is wasted so blatantly.

For crutches a charge for failure to return should be implemented. What a waste of money.

While we’re on the subject, I can’t stand to see the tonnes of plastic that gets thrown out. Surely there could be a way to have it removed by a firm who could get it cleaned and recycled. There are nowhere near enough recycling bins for the amount of plastic waste on wards either.

To implement changes like charges for crutches you need people with time and energy to do it and then money to pay for safety testing ...

Nice try but there is no real evidence that the nhs is less efficient overall than similarly funded systems

I wish it was a way for departments to reduce the waste and split the cost saving 50% back to NHS and 50% to salary increases in that particular department…

I work for a company that transports these single use operation kits etc. Overnight from Europe. This is at an incredible cost.

I had an interview for NHS procurement many, many moons ago. One of the interview scenarios was if you are asked to order an item of furniture by a senior member of staff from a particular supplier but the item is available at a cheaper price from another approved supplier - what would you do? I failed because I went for the cheaper option, apparently it wasn’t within the remit of procurement administrators to question costs.