Half a billion pounds wasted on poor NHS buying practices

NHS hospitals are wasting £500m a year on consumables through inefficient buying practices and the huge variety in products bought by different trusts – including 652 types of gloves and 1,751 types of cannula.

The National Audit Office investigation said procurement should become a “strategic priority” for the NHS as it seeks to make efficiencies. It is currently “failing” at this, according to NAO head Amyas Morse.

He said today: “We believe it is important to find effective ways to hold trusts directly to account to Parliament for their procurement practices.”

Responsibility for better buying lies with each individual trust, rather than the Department of Health. But if trusts collaborated on large orders and rationalised the types of products they order, the savings could be enormous, the NAO calculated.

The NHS has to make £20 billion in efficiency savings over the next four years.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, called some of the buying practices “ridiculous” and “unacceptable”.

She said: “H ow can it be, for instance, that while one trust does its work with just 13 different types of surgical glove, another requires 177? These are well-known recipes for poor value for money that really ought to have been addressed by now.”

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the DoH was “considering launching a review” into NHS procurement.