26th May 2010, Newbury, UK. Andrew Lansley’s announcement immediately following his appointment signalled a push for innovation to increase the bang for buck the health service delivers.  This will lead to a move away from expensive software development products and towards solution driven packages delivered through a hosted model.

It has become evident in a number of NHS Trusts that unnecessary layers of governance bureaucracy are failing to deliver higher quality standards of patient care and are instead a hindrance and distraction, wasting vast amounts of NHS time and budgets.

Andrew Lansley in his first statement as Secretary of State for Health says “We will need progressively to be more efficient, to cut the costs of what we do now, to innovate and re-design, in order to enable us to meet increased demands and to improve quality and outcomes.”  And continues “This will not happen in a top-down, bureaucratic system. “

Better governance doesn’t have to mean more paperwork agrees eShare.   “Too much time and money is being spent on systems and processes that do not work, that drain resources and that fail to ensure high standards as they are intended to do.  In the end it is the patients who are suffering and paying the price,” explains Alister Esam, CEO of eShare Health

Andrew Lansley highlights the failure of a top-down bureaucratic system.  Reams of governance, compliance and monitoring paperwork driven by this approach make people less able to cope and less able to deliver patient care.

“ One of the simplest ways in which the NHS can reduce bureaucracy, is through adopting high-quality readily available developed software solutions that  stop them  getting bogged down in administration and put in place more effective monitoring of Trust  performance and compliance,” says Esam.

“By using software to cut out large amounts of Governance bureaucracy present in Health Trusts, time and money is freed up to focus on what really matters: the patients.”

With the new government now looking for ways to significantly cut its budget deficit, the Secretary for Health’s statement says

“The NHS will be backed with increased real resources” it continues “but with this comes a real responsibility.”  Using software to eliminate unnecessary paperwork will reduce bureaucracy, close the administrative black hole that sucks large amounts of NHS Trust budgets, and improve processes for monitoring trust performance and compliance.

Using software for effective Governance is an important step in improving how Trusts operate, and to maximise the amount of budget that can be allocated to front-line services.

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