Airedale Hospital, near Skipton, which sees 10 per cent of admissions coming from the Pendle and Burnley areas, has installed a telehealth system at a nursing home, two GP surgeries with four more planned, and in a patient’s own home.
The video conferencing system allows patients with chronic conditions to see and speak directly to a medic via a TV set, who can advise and assess whether a hospital admission is necessary.
Read more: GB: North West England: Pendle patients can now see doctor via new video link
The civil service reform plan, published by the Cabinet Office in June, stresses the case for creating by the end of 2013 the infrastructure for give centres for back office transactional services – payroll, finance, HR, procurement - to service the whole of central government.
The report, entitled "Efficiency and reform in government corporate functions through shared service centres", published today, follows another report from government spending watchdog the National Audit Office, which in March this year found that the five shared services projects it had been tracking were £500m over budget.
MPs have blamed budget overruns at shared government services centres on a "complete lack of leadership" from the Cabinet Office.
A report by the National Audit Office earlier this year found that five shared services centres, serving the Ministry of Justice, DWP, Defra, DFT and Research Councils UK, had overrun their costs by a combined £500 million. The plan had been to cut costs by 20%.
Read more: GB: Poor leadership caused £500m shared services overrun
The government’s ambition to generate significant savings by sharing back office functions is failing and is ultimately costing the taxpayer millions of pounds.
In a report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where it investigated the government’s shared services strategy, which began in 2004 but was refreshed in mid-2011, it found that setting up centres to share back office functions had cost £1.4 billion, some £500 million more than expected.
Read more: GB: Government shared services have ‘failed’, MPs say