Driving out variations in clinical care across the patient journey

Good care costs less, the health secretary announced. How much less? According to NHS productivity lead Lord Carter, around £5 billion a year less. That is the amount that the NHS could save if it reduced the amount of unwarranted variation in clinical care, says Robert Dunlop, Clinical Director of Elsevier Clinical Solutions. It is a point echoed by others, such as the King’s Fund’s Better Value in the NHS study, Monitor’s research into elective care pathways, and Sir David Dalton on unacceptable variations in the quality of care in the Dalton Review. These reports show that the benefits of