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Reviews / 2016

Policy reviewPublishedProductivityEngland

Operational productivity and performance in English NHS acute hospitals

Lord Carter of Coles · work from 2015 · published 2016

What this was

Review of unwarranted variation in how acute hospitals use staff, procurement, estates, pharmacy and pathology. It introduced the idea of a model hospital against which trusts could compare themselves.

Why it sits in the hub

It is the productivity counterpart to the safety inquiries. Darzi in 2024 found that productivity had since fallen, so the variation Carter described was not closed.

Findings

  1. Finding 1

    Hospitals providing similar care used very different amounts of staff, supplies and estate.

    Data and early warningProductivity and financeSafe staffing

Recommendations in this hub

Paraphrase of the public recommendations, not the official text.

  1. 1Partly doneNHS trusts

    Use a model-hospital dataset so boards can see where they are outliers.

    Data and early warningProductivity and finance
  2. 2Partly doneNHS

    Consolidate pathology, procurement and estates functions where local duplication wastes money.

    Estates and the care environmentProductivity and finance