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Chief executive of Whittington Health, Dr Yi Mien Koh, explains to Jessica Fuhl that the biggest challenge to integration and efficiency is getting staff on board Whittington Health has ambitions plans for the future. It hopes to achieve foundation trust status by 2014 and its first step to ensure it made sufficient efficiency savings in order to do so was to fully integrate local community services with the hospital last year. In January it had reached 98% of its cost improvement programme (CIP) target for the financial year as a result. The integrated health organisation is a merger of the formerly...

Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust found that transforming human resources was better for staff and reduced costs and we find out how it was done The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) employs around 6,900 people, many with highly specialist skills, yet human resources management was seen as an administrative overhead. UHB has now changed the administrative focus of its HR, through a process transformation programme. The emphasis has shifted to talent management – attracting, retaining and developing people with the skills to deliver service improvements – bringing with it...

Former health secretary and chair of health select committee says that better use of IT will help eliminate waste in the NHS, reports Gill Hitchcock When the Audit Commission published its review of England's NHS this summer and warned of growing financial pressures, trusts already knew that achieving savings equivalent to about 5% of their budgets each year until 2015 meant doing things differently and more efficiently. Stephen Dorrell, the chair of the health select committee and former health secretary, believes making better use of IT is key to eliminating inefficiencies in the NHS, but...

Snapshot survey of some of England's biggest trusts suggests growing problem for the NHS Improper use of social media, especially Facebook, is leading to disciplinary action against staff at a number of English trusts. Figures released to Guardian Healthcare show that 72 separate actions were carried out by 16 trusts against staff who inappropriately used social media between 2008-09 and October 2011. The data, released in response to freedom of information (FoI) requests, reveals Facebook to be the main medium for misdemeanours. The largest number of incidents took place in 2010-11, indicating...

Officials are expressing concerns that information policies are out of line with NHS reforms On all the official indicators, Barnsley PCT was doing a grand job, but it was troubled. "The bother was that the population kept dying on us," its former chief executive, Ailsa Claire, told a King's Fund conference in London last month. Claire, now director of commissioning development for NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, made the remark to highlight a shortcoming in the NHS's use of information: it is a lot better at counting procedures and prescriptions than at measuring the effect on...

The South Atlantic islands make use of techniques that could also apply to remote parts of the UK Travelling by light aircraft, boat or a drive off-road might come as a pleasant change to city commuters, but for the Falkland Islands' chief medical officer (CMO) it's essential part of delivering health services. The Falklands Island Government is in the process of selecting its new CMO, who will help direct a £7.5m medical budget and manage a 28-bed GP-led hospital, a surgical team and support from a range of health professionals. "We try very, very hard to meet UK health services where...

Profiles of the largest suppliers to the IT agency for the NHS in England. Part one: 1-10 News: NHS Connecting for Health slashes spending with CSC Full data on the top 100 suppliers to NHS Connecting for Health and the Department of Health, as well as commentary on this year's figures, is available in a special report for members of Guardian Healthcare Network. Access will be provided through the weekly emails of 12 and 19 October. To sign up for free membership, click here. Members who have problems obtaining the report through the weekly email should contact healthcare@guardian.co.uk , using...