[AdamD]

Never understood how the NHS is so inefficient as far as money goes, but, having worked in a fairly large hospital in the I.T department, I saw massive waste on a day to day basis, so it didn't surprise me, but it did anger me.

There was never any real care about money being wasted, nor any real effort to save money.

Example being, all computing related purchases had to go through the I.T department

They would put in an order for a computer or peripheral through us, we'd order it, it'd arrive, then we'd install it

We'd never query why they'd need a computer with a dvd/cd rom, or sound card (all extras at that time), or if they needed a colour printer, we'd just order it

If they had an old computer that they wanted replacing, we'd take said computer away, install the new one and keep the old one (even if it was fully operational) in a store room.

Those computers would then stay in the store room and never be reissued, if a department needed another computer, we would tell them no, we don't carry any spares (Despite the fact the store room had over 250 computers) and they'd have to order a new one.

Taking into account the two sites i worked at, had probably excess of 1500 computer users, you can imagine just how much waste took place.

Another bizarre example is the ordering process for supplies, if a department ran out, or was running low, on say.....pens, they'd raise an order (called an SD7), which would cost the department/taxpayer £20, then whatever they wanted on top.

So a large pack of pens might only cost £5, but then you'd add that to the order cost, so it ended up costing the department £25.

Never understood that