Ineficiências no Sistema de Saúde Britanico (NHS)

Refere esta notícia, que "The NHS is losing more than £2bn a year through unnecessary emergency hospital admissions, inappropriate prescribing and other inefficiencies".

Dramático. Embora, devemos olhar para estas situações, como fontes de aprendizagem.

Alguns pontos a reter, nesta notícia:

• "Wide variations in the way trusts manage their finances and services have been uncovered by the most detailed audit yet of the health service".
• "Government could not and would not ask the public to support further increased spending on the NHS until it could demonstrate that current funds were being spent effectively".
• "The audit, called Better Care, Better Value, used a wide range of clinical and financial indicators to pinpoint where savings could be made if all trusts performed to the standard of the best 25 per cent".
• "It found that £975m a year could be unlocked by reducing the wide variations in the average length of time a patient stays in hospital. In the most efficient trusts, a patient with a broken hip will be in hospital for an average of 10.9 days, compared with 44.5 days in the least effective".
• "The report suggests that hospitals could reduce the length of a stay by improving the way in which they discharge patients, such as ensuring that medical tests are sent back on time, transport problems are sorted out and relatives and social services informed".
• "Almost £400m a year could be saved by reducing the number of emergency admissions, particularly among people with chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes who should be treated within the community".
• "Increasing the rate of day case surgery and reducing the number of operations which research shows in some cases may carry little benefit for certain patients, such as tonsil removal, were also recommended by the report".

A principal aprendizagem que retiramos daqui, é que é importante realizar auditorias ao serviço. A auditoria não é um processo de "caça às bruxas", antes verifica processos e controla os mesmos, por forma a corrigir o que não está a ser feito de forma adequada.

Seria bom, que quem dirige o Serviço Nacional de Saúde realizasse uma ampla auditoria ao mesmo. Melhorar-se-ia muita coisa, e sem os atropelos do costume.