HFMA 2022: technology holds key to productivity improvement

Productivity has fallen significantly since before the pandemic, despite increases in workforce. In a panel session addressing the big issues facing the NHS, Dr Ferris (pictured) said that technology held part of the answer. ‘People outside of healthcare are constantly amazed that healthcare has not yet experienced the productivity gains from technology that every other industry has,’ he said.

Earlier attempts at introducing technology, such as the adoption of electronic patient records, had actually reduced productivity as clinicians were required to increase the levels of documentation. Dr Ferris said there were two types of technology that the NHS should be considering – ubiquitous technology that could help everywhere and pathway specific technology.

For example, ambient documentation – where the system does the documentation while the practitioner goes about their work – could ‘increase the workforce by 20% and in some fields by 30% to 40%’. He added this sort of solution was ‘getting really close’.

He cited a dermatology app, where the patient sends in a picture of a skin growth for assessment by an algorithm-assisted clinician, as an example of a pathway specific technology. ‘30% of all attendances to dermatology could go away,’ he said. ‘Think about what that could do for the waiting list. ‘And if you do that across all pathways, it is transformational.’

Preeya Bailie (pictured), director of procurement transformation and commercial delivery at NHS England, said that smarter buying could help improve productivity. For example, the NHS spends about £250m on legal services, but just about every trust contracts with the same three legal firms individually. ‘Why are we doing this multiple times,’ she said. ‘We need to come together and be really clear on what is the best way we can buy things, who has got the knowledge and expertise to help us drive it and then make sure we support that.

Ms Bailie said it was not about buying everything centrally, but deciding what worked best for each type of purchase, with buying locally really important for the social value agenda.

Jane Nicholson, director of people at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said that recruitment processes could also be streamlined in some cases. The NHS did ‘too much interviewing’ of its own staff, for example having an interview process to appoint someone who had been in a role on a temporary basis for six months.But she thought the biggest opportunities for improving productivity and patient satisfaction were in the transformation of pathways, which were often unnecessarily convoluted.