Cost reduction in central government

"Despite the short timescale, departments successfully managed within their reduced spending allocations for 2010-11."

Cost reduction in central government: summary of progress
Cabinet Office and HM Treasury
February 2012

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Why clinical quality improvement fails to deliver bottom-line results

"As the U.S. health care system begins shifting its focus from volume to value, hospitals will need to adapt their cost structures and capacity to accommodate lower per capita utilization rates as well as reductions in the per-episode intensity of care."

The savings illusion - why clinical quality improvement fails to deliver bottom-line results
SS Rauh, EB Wadsworth, WB Weeks, JN Weinstein
New England Journal of Medicine, 2011, 365:e48

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Emergency bed use: what the numbers tell us

"Using hospital beds more efficiently could save the NHS at least £1 billion a year and deliver benefits for patients."


Emergency bed use: what the numbers tell us
The King's Fund
December 2011

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Delivering efficiency savings in the NHS

"This memorandum has been prepared for the Health Committee to support its review of public expenditure. It sets out how the NHS, supported by the Department of Health, plans to deliver efficiency savings of up to £20 billion by 2014-15."

NAO briefing for the House of Commons Health Committee: Delivering efficiency savings in the NHS
National Audit Office
September 2011 (published December 2011)

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Generating savings by improving health and well-being

"This briefing features examples of good practice from across the NHS to help inform the planning of strategies to further reduce sickness absence and highlights the opportunities for financial savings that can be made through the introduction and implementation of new policies."


Generating savings by improving health and well-being: experiences in NHS trusts
NHS Employers
November 2011

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Getting out of hospital? The evidence for shifting acute inpatient and day case services from hospitals into the community

This report examines and updates the review of evidence of underpinning the policy drive to transfer acute inpatient and day-case services from hospitals into the community and the effectiveness of this to improve quality of care and save money.

Getting out of hospital?
The Health Foundation
June 2011

Download the full text here (PDF).

Evaluation of the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines

"Previous estimates have suggested that each year between £100-£800 million worth of dispensed NHS medicines go unused and are ultimately discarded......This Report concludes that primary and community care medicines waste in the English NHS should not be regarded as a serious systemic problem. It is better seen as a normal challenge to be tackled via the continued development of existing strategies and care quality improvement initiatives."
Evaluation of the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines: final report
York Health Economics Consortium and The School of Pharmacy (University of London)
November 2010

Read more here.