NHS productivity: reduction in emergency admissions does not mean decline in performance

One would expect that the Institute of Fiscal Studies would be able to produce authoritative analysis of NHS productivity. In Vize’s article on the subject,1 however, he highlights the institute’s analysis which gives a reduction in the number of emergency admissions as an example of a decline in performance.2In clinical practice, emergency admissions are recognised to result from a lack of timely diagnosis or potentially avoidable complications of treatment, to give two prominent examples. Avoidance of emergency admissions is an aspiration of an improving service. Reducing their numbers is a measure of success.In times past, attainment of targets was used as a measure of productivity. That resulted in a distortion whereby services that achieved an attainable target were favoured over other services in the allocation of resources. The most important thing must be the overall care of patients, especially those with major diseases.34 The recent report from Cancer Research UK…
Read Original Article: NHS productivity: reduction in emergency admissions does not mean decline in performance »