The Department of Health and Social Care has launched what its dubs ‘a major crackdown on waste in the NHS to save millions of pounds a year’, with the publication of a new strategy – the Design for Life roadmap – designed to ‘radically cut the number of single-use medical devices in the health service and reduce our reliance on foreign imports’.
The DHSC that disposable medical devices ‘substantially contribute’ to the 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste the NHS produces every year in England alone, adding that the new ‘roadmap’ paves the way to ‘slashing this waste, and maximising re-use, remanufacture and recycling in the NHS’. It says doing so will ‘create thousands more UK jobs, and help transform the country into a life sciences superpower’. The Department said: “As it stands, millions of devices, such as walking aids and surgical instruments, are thrown away after just one use. Harmonic shears – surgical devices which seal patients’ wounds using ultrasound waves – each cost more than £500, and around 90% of them are binned after a single use. Innovative companies are already purchasing these used devices and safely remanufacturing them at a lower price.”
The Government will encourage more of this kind of innovation, ‘to safely remanufacture a wider range of products and drive costs down’, including by changing procurement rules to incentivise reusable products, and rolling out examples where hospitals are already leading the way on cutting wasteful spending and practices.
The DHSC added: “Approximately £10 billion each year is spent on medical technology like this in the NHS, but too much of it is imported via vulnerable routes that risk disrupting patient care.”
A Circular Economy Taskforce has already been created, ‘to foster more highly skilled green jobs and smarter use of our resources’. An economy-wide shift to a circular economy could add £75 billion to the economy and create 500,000 jobs by 2030, the DHSC says
Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting (pictured), said: The NHS is broken. It is the mission of this government to get it back on its feet, and we can’t afford a single penny going to waste.
Because the NHS deals in the billions, too often it doesn’t think about the millions. That has to change. This government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, so we will have a laser-like focus on getting better value for taxpayers’ money. Every year, millions of expensive medical devices are chucked in the bin after being used just once. We are going to work closely with our medical technology industry to eliminate waste and support homegrown medtech and equipment.”
The new ‘roadmap’ sets out 30 actions to achieve this shift – including how the government will work with companies to encourage the production of more sustainable products, along with training for NHS staff on how to use them.
The DHSC says taking this approach will mean more money can be spent in the UK, ‘driving growth, creating more engineering, life sciences, and research jobs – all while securing savings for the NHS budget’. It adds that many of the products in question include precious metals such as platinum and titanium, which are in high demand, but go to landfill, when they could be recovered and sold. The Department added: “A reduction in the amount of disposed single-use devices will also reduce the country’s carbon footprint and plastic pollution. The government will encourage industry figures to innovate – by making sure benefits of reusable medtech are part of how the NHS chooses the products it buys.”
The NHS made a record £7.25 billion worth of efficiency savings last year ,and is targeting a further £9 billion of savings for 2024 to 2025. The Design for Life programme was developed with more than 80 stakeholders from the UK medtech industry, the health and care system, and research organisations.
