The variations uncovered by the review included:
• average running costs for a hospital (£ per square metre) vary from £105 at one trust to as high as £970 for another
• infection rates for hip and knee replacements vary from 0.5 to 4%
• prices paid by different hospitals for hip replacements range from £788 to £1590
• the use of floor space - one trust uses 12% for non-clinical purposes and another uses as much as 69%
• sickness absence rates differ from 3.1% to 5%
As well as reviewing hospitals across England, Lord Carter’s review looked at healthcare systems abroad, including in the US, Germany, Australia, Italy and France where hospitals have a greater focus on efficiency because they have established the clear link it has with patient care.
The report noted that in hospital pharmacy, the more time pharmacists spend on clinical services rather than infrastructure or back-office services, the more likely mediciness is optimised however there was significant variation of (2.5-7.1%) in the rates of prescribing pharmacists as a proportion of total hospital pharmacists. With regards to medicines, stockholding was found to vary from 11 to 36 days, and if everyone achieved 15 days this would save £50 million.