England
offers best value healthcare
Reports on the BBC show that the NHS in England provides better value for money than
elsewhere in the UK. The Nuffield Trust found there were fewer
health staff per head in England,
but higher levels of activity and productivity, as well as shorter waits.
The differences were most marked when England was compared with Scotland, and perhaps unsurprisingly, health
officials in Scotland
believe the comparison to be unfair and out-of-date, pointing out that many of
the measures had improved since the study was carried out.
Indeed, it would be difficult to make a fair comparison
between the four nations, as they collect different data in different
ways. Nevertheless, a clearly delighted
spokesperson for the DH in England
said the findings were "testament to the tremendous hard work and
achievement of NHS staff".
Improvements and efficiency gains have been made, but
perhaps the elephant in the room here is that productivity levels across the UK
have fallen over the same period, and this is something we need to address with
urgency, given the economic situation and squeeze on NHS spending.
Healthcare providers are going to have to do more with less,
and one way to achieve this is through the use of technology to streamline and
speed up core processes. Digital
dictation is just one example of a technology which is helping to speed up the
time taken to produce reports and letters, with turnaround times cut by over
50%.
The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre is just one
example of a healthcare provider using Voice Technologies’ digital dictation
and speech recognition solutions to cut turnaround times in half, boost
workflow efficiency and enable secretaries to handle an increased workload.
Voice Technologies’ digital dictation solutions are now also
available to Trusts south of the border, thanks to the Yorkshire and Humber Commercial Procurement Collaborative agreement,
giving acute, primary care and mental health trusts the ability to make
significant cost and efficiency gains through digital dictation and speech
recognition.