With the NHS under increasing pressure to make every pound count, are cash realising benefits a sensible solution or are we losing sight of the real value of long term thinking?
Cash realising benefits (CRBs) are any saving which does exactly what the name suggests – releases funds for use in other areas. In the NHS any intervention which generates CRBs is, logically, called a Cash Releasing Intervention. Examples of these include:
- Moving from analogue to digital
- Moving care from hospitals to the community
- Treating sickness to prevent ill health
And while these examples do have an eye to the future, it’s worth noting that there are a lot of potential ways to generate CRBs which focus less on value, and more on accumulating cash. An extreme example of this would be the concept of ‘selling off the silverware’ – in theory the NHS could start selling hospitals for large sums from real estate developers, but pretty soon we’d start running out of hospitals and accumulating a lot of sick people with nowhere to go.
The Health Economics Unit (HEU) has been asked to undertake a literature review looking at
- identify cash-releasing interventions that have been implemented in health or healthcare settings, and
- what evidence exists regarding their impact on cost reduction and efficiency without negatively affecting patient outcomes
As we complete the review HEU Director Andi Orlowski will be appearing at the Health Finance Managers Association’s Value Summit to give his expert perspective on why CRBs are not the solution the NHS needs to reach for right now.
Andi said: “At the Value Summit I will be talking about the huge pressure the NHS is under to make every pound count.
“My presentation explores how we can shift from chasing short-term savings to making smarter, long-term decisions that genuinely improve health – by focusing on value, not just cost.”
If you are interested in seeing the outcome of our review once it’s published contact us here.