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  • How critical cost analysis can save money in today’s NHS: a review of carpal tunnel surgery in a district general hospital

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BMJ Quality Improvement Report
How critical cost analysis can save money in today’s NHS: a review of carpal tunnel surgery in a district general hospital
  1. Mark Williamson,
  2. Ranjit Sehjal,
  3. Mark Jones,
  4. Chris James,
  5. Andrew Smith
  1. Department of Orthopaedics, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, Canterbury, UK
  1. Correspondence to Mark Williamson; mark.williamson{at}doctors.org.uk

Abstract

With today’s National Health Service (NHS) facing huge financial pressures the healthcare profession cannot afford to carry on spending at the current rate. Individual clinicians should be encouraged to critically appraise their own practices to bring about a more efficient and cost-effective service.

The purpose of this project was to analyse the way that carpal tunnel surgery was being performed within our institution and bring about safe changes to practice that reduce expenditure.

By critiquing our practices and applying simple changes based around sound evidence an annual saving of over £15 500 to the department was made. The changes instigated are simple, sustainable and safe to implement while providing improved patient satisfaction. They are also easily transferrable across institutions and to other minor hand surgical procedures to afford even greater ongoing savings to the NHS.

  • cost-effectiveness
  • evidence-based medicine
  • healthcare quality improvement
  • quality improvement

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2017-000115

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors MW: original idea, design and instigation of quality improvement changes, research and writing of paper. RS and MJ: assisting with instigation of quality improvement changes, assisting with research and writing of paper. CJ and AS: senior authors, assisting with instigation of changes, review and editing of paper prior to submission.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.