The government is launching a major crackdown on waste in the NHS to save millions of pounds a year, helping to divert more resources to frontline care. The Design for Life roadmap has been published to radically cut the number of single-use medical devices in the health service and reduce reliance on foreign imports.
Disposable medical devices substantially contribute to the 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste that the NHS produces every year in England alone. The roadmap paves the way to cutting this waste and maximising reuse, remanufacture and recycling in the NHS.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The NHS is broken. It is the mission of this government to get it back on its feet, and we can’t afford a single penny going to waste. Because the NHS deals in the billions, too often it doesn’t think about the millions. That has to change. This government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, so we will have a laser-like focus on getting better value for taxpayers’ money. Every year, millions of expensive medical devices are chucked in the bin after being used just once. We are going to work closely with our medical technology industry, to eliminate waste and support homegrown MedTech and equipment.”
The DHSC has highlighted a number of case studies to illustrate potential savings, including:
• In Northampton Hospitals NHS Trust, a single ophthalmology department saved 1,000 pairs of disposable scissors and £12,000 in a year by switching to reusable pairs. Single-use scissors are often used in surgical settings. NHS procurement data shows that several million pairs of single-use scissors were purchased by the NHS in a single year (2022 to 2023). That is the equivalent of hundreds of pairs of scissors thrown away every hour
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust saved £76,610 in costs purchasing 604 remanufactured electrophysiology (EP) catheters, and generated a further £22,923 for selling used devices for collection. If the same approach were to be scaled up across the UK, the NHS could save millions of pounds per year on EP catheters alone, just a few product lines among hundreds of thousands
To view the full report, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/design-for-life-roadmap/design-for-life-roadmap--4#summary
