Currently, the NHS in England collectively spends over £633 million1 on energy alone annually. With 245 Trusts,2 that is an average of £2.6 million per Trust. There is no one ‘quick-fix’ solution; the NHS needs instead to think ‘outside the box’ to make manageable improvements to its estate, and free up hefty sums to drive back into patient care.
Individual measures will help reduce costs and overheads, but combining these into one strategic programme of improvement will deliver the really impactful savings that the NHS so desperately needs. So says James Thackrah, healthcare solutions director at Schneider Electric, who here describes ‘eight ways that could save your Trust up to £6 million’.
There is no shortage of coverage in the UK press about the growing pressures the NHS – and ultimately its Board of Directors – currently face. Whether it is rising energy costs, carbon taxes, ageing estates, theft or loss of assets, cancelled or postponed operations, or healthcare-acquired infections, you need only pick up a newspaper to read about these issues. Some recent reports have even suggested that the NHS faces such a crisis that some Trusts will run out of money and face ‘financial meltdown’ by 2015-2016.3
Against this backdrop, I will set out eight key ways that hospitals, and their estates departments, can make major savings.
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