Saturday, 26 September 2009

TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 25th September 2009

New research: NHS Trusts under-using vital machinery
 
A new TPA report out today provides evidence that many NHS Trusts are not adequately utilising expensive treatment and diagnostic equipment. With a crisis in the public finances and patients still forced to wait for important diagnostic and treatment procedures, the fact that many Trusts are under-utilising expensive and important facilities is of serious concern. Whilst NHS Trusts of course vary by population density, strikingly some of the most poorly performing Trusts are in large population centres where there is high demand, such as Hull, Coventry, Cardiff and London.
 
The report assesses each Trust's usage of a variety of key pieces of equipment including MRI scanners, CT scanners and Linacs, which are used to administer radiotherapy treatment. Analysis of the results shows that there is great potential to increase the efficiency of many NHS Trusts in order to improve service to patients and value for taxpayers. Increasing the usage of under-used machines to the NHS national average could provide hundreds of thousands of extra treatments and diagnostic scans every year, without the need to purchase extra, costly equipment or buy in extra services from outside contractors.

The full report can be read here.
 
The report has a received a good range of media coverage, including:
 
Daily Telegraph: Machines to fight cancer 'are under-used in NHS hospitals'
Daily Star: NHS Hospital equipment 'under-used'
The Metro: NHS hospital equipment 'under-used'
 
The report was also covered by Sky News and BBC London News amongst others.
 
Win: The Painspotter's Guide to Broken Britain
 
This week, as a special treat for TPA supporters, we have an opportunity to win one of ten copies of the new book The Painspotter's Guide to Broken Britain, by Andrew Holmes and Dan Wilson. The book, which provides a hilarious guide to (and an opportunity to rate) a range of characters from the credit crunch and recession, from greedy MPs to bankrupt bankers, is described as "more effective than Prozac and cheaper than therapy". If you want to defuse some of the depression of the recession with a bit of good, old-fashioned finger-pointing and mockery, it is well worth a read.
 
To enter the competition, please send in by response to this email your most outrageous example of Government waste. The competition closes next Thursday 1st October, and will be judged by author Andrew Holmes and TPA Chief Executive Matthew Elliott. The most shocking, most interesting and most original examples of politicians, bureaucrats or anyone else wasting taxpayers' money will be awarded a copy of the book.
 
Fight back against politically correct council waste
 
A particularly egregious example of council waste came to our attention this week. Southwark Council, which is not known for its good value or efficient management, uses local taxpayers' money to produce Equality News, a glossy magazine that documents the council's pursuit of politically correct initiatives. As if that wasn't wasteful (and sanctimonious) enough, the magazine is of course produced in Bengali, Chinese, French, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese translations. One can't help but think that while the number of people in Southwark who might want read such a dubious propaganda sheet is already pretty low, the number who want to read it in Vietnamese must be almost non-existent. To read more about the case, and to get the contact details of the Councillor responsible, click here.  
 
Best of the blogs
 
Campaign: About time, too...
Burning Our Money: Dodgy practices  
Burning Our Money: The University of real life  
European Union: Calling all terrorists 
 

Posted by Britannia Radio at 11:33