Carter review must not lead to more targets

摘要

Lord Carter has published his long awaited review into NHS acute trusts' efficiency. If achieved, this will deliver approximately a quarter of the £23.5bn of savings the NHS must make by 2020. Trusts know that finding new ways of improving efficiency and productivity are required and Lord Carter makes a number of helpful recommendations. One is advocating the greater use of data transparency, for example by calculating average spend on common items so providers can see how they compare to their peers. This demonstrates the best of what the 'centre' can do: highlight unwarranted differences between trusts, provide data to help them improve and then let boards get into the nitty-gritty of improving performance.