David Oliver: Hunt’s call to cut time spent on NHS paperwork is a hypocritical soundbite

September saw newspaper reports of the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, asking government departments to report on how much time frontline staff in key public services were spending on “non-core work” such as administration paperwork and “red tape.”1 He reiterated this in his Tory Party conference speech.2 He argued that the time spent on such tasks harmed productivity, even with extra resources, and that taxes might have to double if it wasn’t tackled.Such calls are not new. Most recently, the NHS England workforce plan explicitly called for productivity gains in exchange for expanding staff numbers.3 And in every spending round the Treasury calls for efficiencies in exchange for funding uplifts, or indeed to compensate for cuts. Other public servants such as police officers or teachers often complain about the paperwork burden that stops them from focusing on their core job.NHS clinicians are no exception. We’ve led initiatives before such as the “productive…
Read Original Article: David Oliver: Hunt’s call to cut time spent on NHS paperwork is a hypocritical soundbite »