University and Hospital show Minister how Invest to Save is helping them deliver more efficient services

31 Mar 2015 01:16 PM

The Finance and Government Business Minister Jane Hutt today (31 March) visits Cardiff Metropolitan University and Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr to see how the Invest to Save scheme is helping public service organisations across Wales deliver services more efficiently.

At the University the Minister saw how £150,000 Welsh Government funding was used to install LED lighting to replace inefficient lighting on the campus. The scheme will cut the University’s energy bills and meeting carbon reduction targets in line with the Welsh Government’s Climate Change Strategy.

The estimated cash releasing savings are £25,000 in 2015-16, rising to £70,000 per annum from 2016-17. The University has committed to reduce emissions by 3 per cent year-on-year.

In Prince Charles Hospital, Cwm Taf University Health Board have used Invest to Save on three schemes.

• An investment of £241,000 for the Early Stroke Discharge Unit will generate net cash releasing savings of £154,000 per annum by 2016-17. The Stroke Specialist Therapies Team aims to expedite early discharge and rehabilitation in a home setting.  
• Funding of £105,000 for Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy will bring an estimated net cash releasing savings of £149,000 from 2017-18.
• And £995,000 investment over three years for centralisation and digitisation of records will generate cash releasing savings of £1.6 million by 2018-19. At the moment Cwm Taff holds more than 1.3 million paper records across 33 locations.  Centralising records in one fit for purpose hub will provide estate and staffing efficiencies.  The project will also see records recorded electronically.

The Minister said:

“I am delighted to see how our Invest to Scheme funding is bringing real change and improvement to the delivery of more efficient public services in Wales.

“Schemes like those I have seen today at the Cardiff Metropolitan University and Prince Charles Hospital show how our funding is helping support organisations to introduce new and innovative ideas on service delivery.

“Invest to Save has a good track record in improving public service efficiency and independent analysis has shown Invest to Save has generated £3 of gross benefit for every £1 invested.

“Some 94 projects have already benefited from investment of more than £102 million and earlier this month I was delighted to announce £10 million further funding to help a total of 23 public service improvement projects.”