Originally published in icon Issue 1 2007
The Doncaster and South Humberside NHS Trust caused a bit more than a local stir when they decided to spend £10,000 on outside consultants to think up a new name and logo. Prompting comments of ‘scandalous waste of money’ was one thing. But it also prompted the UK’s national newspapers to focus on the wastage in the total NHS budget. According to the ‘think tank’ Reform, the NHS ‘squanders £25 billion a year through mis-management, out of a total of £92 billion’. That’s a whopping 27 per cent, or one nurse in almost three. As we reported three years ago, the number of ‘management posts’ now exceeds beds in hospitals.