Search for efficiency savings continues

 Titled ‘NHS Estate Efficiency Review’, the EC Harris report ‘looks at both the condition and issues within the NHS estate, as well as some of the solutions’. One of its key findings is that, ‘by improving the efficiency of its estates and facilities management’, the NHS in England could be saving £1.5 billion annually.

We have all heard the scare stories in the press in recent months, with headlines such as: ‘NHS England struggling to balance budget’, and ‘NHS financial crisis inevitable’, and, with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) finding their voices, and the effects of another year of ‘tariff deflators’, the pressure on Trusts to balance the books is greater than ever before. The quick wins have been won, but there are still, in our view, major savings to be made. 

At EC Harris we have, achieved savings of £1 million per annum for three NHS Trusts through effective procurement of estates and facilities management, and operational service savings totalling £60 million over the contracts’ lifetime. The 2013 figures show that many Trusts have focused on the opportunity, and asset utilisation of their estate, which now stands at 95%. However, there is still 1.3 million m² of unused estate – the equivalent to the entire area occupied by 13.5 Trusts, even allowing for the fact that the overall footprint has reduced to just over 27 million m².