The cheap innovations the NHS could take from sub-Saharan Africa

Surgeons have found that sterilised mosquito netting can be used for hernia repair – one of several options that could save the NHS £100m in five years

It is often said: “You get what you pay for.” Price stands as proxy for quality, whether it’s a new shirt, a new car or a meal in a smart restaurant. We measure value in pound signs.

Do we get what we pay for in the NHS? Often we pay over the odds for a product or service that turns out to be of poor value. Pharmaceutical companies charge sky-high prices for their drugs, hospital trusts squander thousands on agency staff, and eye-popping interest rates are being levied on private finance deals, to build shiny operating theatres and modern laboratories that should be funded by the state.

Related: Old technology: NHS uses 10% of world's pagers at annual cost of £6.6m

Related: Inefficient hospitals ‘wasting hundreds of millions of pounds each year’

Potential cost savings could amount to more than £100​m over the next five years

Continue reading... October 27, 2017 at 03:17PM