24.08.18
NHS hospitals should be run like Tesco chains to improve standards, Dalton says
One of the leading NHS chief executives claims struggling hospitals should be run like supermarket chains to improve efficiencies and savings.
Sir David Dalton, CEO of a top-rated Salford Royal NHS FT and the man handpicked to lead divisive junior doctor negotiations in 2016, said supermarket chains such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s have shown that a standard model “can drive up quality and increase efficiency” of services—and noted that regulators should allow better-run trusts to take over failing hospitals.
His own foundation trust came together with Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust last year under an alliance designed to standardise practices.
Writing in The Times yesterday, Dalton said: “We tolerate too much unwarranted variation in our health services and as a consequence the NHS spends huge sums on management consultants and expensive ‘turnaround directors’ in troubled hospitals.
“Surely it would be better to encourage trusts that are in difficulties to join a chain so that they can learn and implement best practice. Supermarket chains such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s have shown that a standard model can drive up quality and increase efficiency, at the same time as giving people the local shops that they want.”
Sir David argued that the NHS’s plethora of separately-run hospitals “are a key reason why standards in care vary so dramatically in what is meant to be a national health service.”
“In Salford, community services, social care and even some GP practices have all become part of a single organisation,” he added. “That has made a reality of the integrated care that national leaders have long talked about but have struggled to implement.”
The Salford Royal CEO noted that his group now has a “standard operating model” that ensures each hospital focuses on certain priorities, using tried-and-tested methods. The four hospitals were inadequate when they were taken over, whereas now 70% of assessed services are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding.’
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Image credit: Nick Ansell