GSD flags concern over stock control in Pathology Department

The GSD said it was concerned by a lack of stock control in the GHA’s Pathology Department identified by the Principal Auditor in his latest report.

The report identified that in 2022/23, the department spent £4.5m on laboratory equipment, scientific apparatus, solutions/reagents, testing equipment and other items.

But the Principal auditor found that “no departmental stock control” was exercised over these items of stock and that no stores inventory records were held showing details of the receipt, location and issue/disposal of store items.

“A physical examination of stock items showed an apparent overspend in goods as the storerooms were full up and there were boxes of purchased goods left in boxes outside the location of the store,” the Principal Auditor said in the report.

He added that “… a lot of the purchased items held on stock have expiry dates of which a significant amount were expiring before use.”

Shadow Minister for Health Joelle Ladislaus said such lack of controls on stock could lead to a waste of public funds.

“With such considerable expenditure in the health budget, there, rightfully, comes an expectation of appropriate stock control systems, inventory management and other such safeguards to minimise waste and ensure that finite resources are put to good use,” she said in a statement.

“Value for money is never more important than in the face of massive debt, such as that which the current Government has accrued over the past 12 years.”

“We have often been misquoted by Government as championing cuts to the health budget, which would in turn impact the level of service that the GHA could provide, simply for the sake of saving.”

“This is simply untrue.”

“What we cannot condone is the apparent waste and misuse of public funds, which results in expenditure not being used for the benefit of service users.”

“Rather than purchasing items that have gone to waste in the corridors outside of the GHA’s storerooms, the funds would have been put to better use in other areas of the GHA, such as employing further staff to deal with the backlogs within the GHA’s dental department, or purchases of ambulances at an earlier date, which would have avoided further expenditure now whilst we wait for the arrival of the new ambulances.”

“In conclusion, people should be rightly concerned, as we are, over the revelation of these lack of controls to guarantee better value for money for taxpayers.”