Hancock seeks to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy on NHS

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced a new drive to empower frontline health and care staff, by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and locking in positive change seen during the pandemic.

Approximately a third of a community-based clinician’s time is spent on administration and patient coordination and over half of doctors report that at least one hour of their work each day could be carried out by non-clinical staff.

Stripping back excess bureaucracy means hardworking frontline staff can spend less time on paperwork and more time with their patients. The move follows a call for evidence over the summer from frontline health and care staff, through which over 600 respondents identified 1,000 examples of excess bureaucracy that they face in their day-to-day jobs, such as improving the way data is collected and shared to allow our frontline staff to focus more on patient care.

The new report sets out a new, comprehensive strategy to streamline processes and reduce bureaucracy, identifying eight priority areas for action to save hardworking staff valuable time as they work around the clock to care for people and save lives.

These include: rethinking medical staff appraisals by putting an end to lengthy paperwork and ensuring a more meaningful assessment of professional development and progress; modernising outdated and prescriptive professional regulation; and reducing duplicative or repetitive data requests which can take up a huge amount of frontline staff’s time.

Speaking at the NHS Confederation’s NHS Reset Conference, Hancock said: “Of course, rules and regulations have their place. They can be the cornerstone of safe and high-quality care. But when left unchecked, rules and regulations can outgrow their original purpose – and they can stifle innovation and damage morale.

“Learning from the first peak, in July we set up a call for evidence on reducing bureaucracy in the health and social care systems. And I mean the system as a whole. We engaged with staff on the front line and spoke with dozens of stakeholder groups. The contributions we received have been so vital in lifting that x-ray up to the light, and illuminating those daily irritations that make people’s lives harder. Like onerous clearance processes, complicated appraisals, and slow discharges.

“And of course the changes we need to make don’t always have to be big. In the pandemic, we’ve seen that little things can make a big difference, for instance letting doctors and nurses communicate with patients securely over WhatsApp or providing single logins across multiple different computers. I’m determined that we seize this moment and build on the very best of what we have seen over these past nine months.”