Backlog guidance 'flaw' addressed

In a previous article, in the September 2010 edition of Health Estate Journal, "Is multi-million pound backlog a reality", independent consultant to the healthcare sector, Dr Melvyn Langford, highlighted what he claimed was a "fundamental flaw" in the way the established NHS "5 x 5 criticality grid" used to assess the urgency of backlog maintenance had been interpreted for many years by estates personnel, resulting, he said, in one Trust with a reported 12 million pounds sterling backlog in fact only having a 0.5 m pound sterling "backlog issue". Here he describes an alternative methodology, recently successfully tested with several pilot NHS sites, which he says corrects this flaw, and could have "major implications" for estates and facilities personnel under unprecedented pressure to cut costs.