NHS staff need to be creative to hit Qipp targets

NHS staff need to be creative to hit Qipp targets:

The NHS has saved £5.8bn in the last year without compromising quality, but to continue to hit targets clinicians and finance managers must work together
A 75-year-old woman was admitted to a NHS hospital in the north-west with a fractured left ankle that was treated with surgery. But while reaching for her glasses on a side table a day before her discharge date, she fell from her bed causing a hip fracture, which meant a further stay of 14 days.
In the same week, at a London hospital, another elderly woman was ready to be discharged after her treatment for a chest infection, but had to stay an extra two days because of lack of co-ordination in the discharging process.
 In both cases, an effective engagement between the clinical and finance teams were triggered to establish common ground and deal with the problems together.There are many more examples like this available at Nice Qipp evidence case studies, which help to spread best practice around the NHS.
NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson has outlined a challenge for the NHS to deliver annual efficiency savings of up to £20bn by 2014-15 without compromising quality and safety, while also creating fresh momentum to achieve a fit for purpose health system for the future.
If the NHS is to deliver on this challenge then clinicians and finance managers need to get engaged in the new commissioning and provider world.
There are a number of things happening in the NHS which would help to create better value-based healthcare.
The 2011-12 period was the first full year of the £20bn productivity challenge – Qipp – and national figures showed that the efforts of NHS organisations led to a saving of £5.8bn without any compromise in quality. This is an excellent start but to repeat it in the remaining three years, organisations have to be creative, proactive, show perseverance and harness their expertise to achieve value for patients.
It won't be easy, but late Body Shop founder Anita Roddick put it well: "To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality."
Dr Mahmood Adil is national Qipp adviser for clinical and finance engagement at the Department of Health and visiting professor of value-based healthcare at Manchester Business School.
Guardian Professional.