Trust plays its part in Carter agenda.

With Lord Carter's recent 'Productivity and Efficiency' review suggesting some £5 bn could be saved annually by acute Trusts in England by 2020 via activities such as 'smarter' procurement and better use of existing estate, the Procurement and Commercial team at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust have been working intensively to play their part. More efficient procurement, securing better deals on utility costs, and cutting the cost, and improving the efficiency of, sterile services activities, are among a wide range of initiatives championed by the team that have seen it deliver a £1.1 m cost reduction for the Trust in 2016-2016, with a £1.2 m saving predicted this year, and a 'value creation' of over £2 m. The Trust's commercial services team has also developed and supports an ever-expanding range of innovative new products and services, and launched spin-off companies to market them. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered, these range from a bedstacker designed to reduce the number of empty hospital beds left in corridors, to a fully managed service for Trusts wanting to install solar canopies in their car parks.