Doing more with less: Unlocking NHS productivity and financial resilience through data

For NHS Chief Financial Officers, Chief Operating Officers and Integrated Care System (ICS) finance directors, the mandate is clear and unrelenting.

Deliver world-class care while operating under historic financial strain. 

The challenge of ‘doing more with less’ is no longer an aspiration but a necessary operational reality. The financial & productivity pillar of the NHS 10-Year Plan acknowledges that without radical improvements in efficiency and financial resilience, the ambitious clinical and reform goals simply cannot be achieved.

Systems need efficiency, transparency and financial resilience today.

Productivity in healthcare is often complex, requiring translating clinical quality into tangible financial benefits. The biggest barrier to achieving this is not a lack of commitment, but a chronic lack of integrated, reliable and real-time data. 

Fragmented legacy systems obscure operational waste, prevent accurate tracking of resource utilisation and make it impossible to link investment directly to measurable outcomes.

Financial models will evolve from block contracts to value-based funding and providers will be incentivised for outcomes, efficiency and innovation. SPARK Fusion® is the enabling technology that provides the financial visibility needed. 

By linking operational performance data with clinical outcomes and resource consumption, the platform allows finance leaders to move beyond retrospective accounting and towards proactive, data-driven financial decision-making, unlocking the path to true sustainability.

The mandate for data-driven efficiency

NHS planning guidance consistently prioritises efficiency gains, often setting demanding targets for Trusts and ICSs. Productivity targets (e.g. 2% year-on-year gains) and multi-year financial planning (5-year rolling plans) are core requirements. Meeting these targets requires an analytical foundation that current systems often fail to provide. 

Finance leaders cannot confidently commit to efficiency savings if they cannot accurately measure baseline performance, identify actual waste and track the impact of digital investments.

Effective financial resilience in the modern NHS depends on three technological capabilities:

1. Granular visibility: Seeing costs and usage patterns down to the ward, team, or procedure level.
2. Predictive modelling: Forecasting demand and resource needs to prevent expensive, reactive spending (e.g. temporary staff and premium procurement).
3. Measurable ROI: Demonstrating the direct financial return from efficiency-driving projects, such as digital transformation initiatives.

SPARK Fusion® serves as the intelligence layer, unifying data from clinical systems, estate management, supply chain and workforce platforms to create a cohesive financial picture. It provides analytics for cost efficiency (food, resource use), outcome-based metrics and support for new funding models and accountability.

1. Measurable efficiency gains through operational analytics

The most significant drain on NHS resources often stems from inefficiencies in operational flow, not clinical spend. These operational inefficiencies manifest as delayed patient throughput, sub-optimal scheduling and unplanned emergency expenditure.

SPARK Fusion®’s operational analytics provide the deep insights needed to tackle these high-cost areas:

• Reducing Delayed Transfers of Care (DTOC): DTOC is one of the most expensive forms of waste, costing the system millions annually by tying up acute beds. SPARK Fusion® provides dashboards that track every stage of the discharge pathway, identifying the exact moment and location of delays (e.g. waiting for social care assessment, transport or medication). This data allows finance and operations teams to target investment precisely (for instance, in automated social care referral systems), yielding a high-impact financial return by freeing up acute capacity.
• Optimising theatre and clinic utilisation: Wasted time in theatres and outpatient clinics due to no-shows or inefficient turnover is a high cost. SPARK Fusion® integrates patient engagement data with scheduling systems to more accurately predict no-show rates and automate slot backfilling, ensuring high-value assets (theatre time or consultant hours) are utilised to their maximum potential, directly boosting hourly productivity.

2. Waste reduction through data visibility

Waste in the NHS extends beyond unused clinical time to include inventory, medication and energy consumption. Achieving sustainability goals, which are deeply intertwined with financial resilience, requires visibility into this operational waste.

• Supply chain and inventory optimisation: By integrating data from supply chain management systems with clinical usage patterns, SPARK Fusion® can highlight inventory holding costs and prevent unnecessary stock duplication across different wards or Trusts within an ICS. This ensures a just-in-time approach, reducing waste and capital tied up in redundant stock.
• Medication management: The platform can more effectively track and flag unused or expired medications by linking prescribing data with dispensing and administration records, leading to substantial savings and reduced risk.
• Estate and energy efficiency: While not a core clinical function, SPARK Fusion®’s ability to overlay operational data can extend to monitoring energy consumption linked to specific building usage, supporting the net-zero carbon commitment while also driving utility savings — a dual sustainability and financial win. The guide identifies the reduction in waste (e.g. food, resource usage) as a key financial metric to measure.

3. Securing performance-based funding

The future of NHS funding is increasingly tied to demonstrating outcomes and efficient delivery, particularly within the ICS framework. Finance leaders need to be able to confidently demonstrate that their organisation meets national and local performance standards.

SPARK Fusion® provides the audited, transparent data required for this assurance:

• Proof of outcome delivery: By linking spending on digital projects to metrics like reduced average length of stay (ALOS) or decreased hospital readmission rates, Trusts can demonstrate the financial ROI of their strategic investments. This evidence is vital for securing subsequent waves of transformation funding.
• ICS-wide financial coherence: Within an ICS, SPARK Fusion® ensures data continuity across all partner organisations (such as Trusts, GPs and community providers), enabling accurate system-wide financial reporting and risk pooling. This shared, consistent financial truth is crucial for effective commissioning and successful allocation of devolved budgets, fulfilling a key requirement of the financial pillar.

The ultimate goal of the financial & productivity pillar is to build a financially resilient NHS that can sustain high-quality care for the long term. This goal is unattainable without a modern, integrated platform that transforms raw data into actionable financial intelligence. 

SPARK Fusion® provides finance leaders with the tools to transparently measure efficiency, identify waste, and confidently link their digital investment strategy directly to productivity gains, ensuring they truly are doing more with less. This commitment supports outcome-based models and value-based care. 

Ready to unlock immediate productivity gains and prove ROI on your digital investments? Download our guide for the practical roadmap to achieve financial resilience under the NHS 10-Year Plan.