Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Accepted
Effective electronic bed management systems improve patient flow, but wider rollout is stalled.
Conclusion
The Department told us that when looking internationally, demand for health across OECD countries goes up around 4% a year and improving productivity had to be one of the ways of meeting that demand. Alongside an increase in productivity, increasing the supply of services, improvements to public health in order to reduce demand, and developing new technology would be crucial to improving performance in the NHS.18 NHS England also told us that effective electronic management systems could improve patent flows within hospitals and increase overall productivity.19 As an example, NHS England pointed to four organisations in England that have implemented fully functional electronic bed management systems, allowing them to track patients and bed occupancy in real time.20 NHS England told us that it planned to work with a further 16 trusts this year to implement this system that it knows works well. The initiative will not be funded by new money but will be paid for from capital identified in existing budgets from both NHS England and hospital trusts. We asked whether NHS England had done an analysis of the costs and benefits in productivity terms. NHS England told us that productivity benefits would be part of the business case it is discussing with the Department for rolling out electronic bed management systems more widely, but could not yet be confirmed 11 C&AG’s Report, para 4.13 12 Q 1 13 Qq 1, 2 14 Qq 2, 28, 29 and 118 15 Qq 27, 28 16 Qq 3, 4; NHS England, NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, June 2023 17 NHS England, NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, June 2023, page 71 paragraph 8 18 Qq 119, 121 19 Q 52 20 Qq 48, 50 10 Access to urgent and emergency care because the business case has not been formally approved.21 In written evidence after the session NHS England informed us that it expects the main productivity benefit from this system will result from better visibility of bed capacity leading to more informed decision- making, in turn reducing the down time between a bed bei
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and is implementing digital tools like electronic bed management systems and System Control Centres, aiming to improve patient flow and productivity with a target implementation date of April 2024. They are also boosting capacity with 5,000 extra beds.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2024 1.2 Despite challenges arising from industrial actions and winter pressures, the NHS is making progress to recover the lost productivity as result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest analysis by the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s official statistical body, indicate that this fall may have been entirely recovered, with growth in 2021 of between 22.2% and 30.9%. Part of the challenge the NHS has faced is that patients being treated are now more complex than pre-COVID. The higher than pre-COVID level of sickness absence level is another of the factors, affecting workforce productivity in recent years, although the trend is now declining. The current measurement of productivity also does not fully capture the full range of activities and innovations the sector is delivering, such as expansions of out of hospital care, and is currently being reviewed. 1.3 However, there will always be more opportunity to improve, which is why a key component of the recovery plans for Urgent and Emergency Care and Primary Care and the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is improving elements of productivity, including reducing staff absences and improving processes. 1.7 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2024 1.8 One of the key ambitions of the Urgent and Emergency Care recovery plan is improving patient flow through hospitals, with plans to boost capacity with 5,000 extra core General and Acute beds. In addition to this, NHS England is working with systems to support implementation of digital tools that support decision making in near real time, including the development of System Control Centres (SCCs) and the use of electronic bed-management systems both in hospitals and across other health and care settings. NHS England will also continue to develop and roll out the A&E Admissions Forecasting Tool.