NHS energy managers come under fire over salaries, efficiency

Energy managers working for the National Health System have come under fire as the Taxpayers’ Alliance branded the NHS’ “green” staff a “waste” of public money.

In a recent statement, the group claimed that NHS trusts across the UK spent at least £3.5 million on wages for 86 members of staff covering a variety of roles, ranging from sustainability to energy management, a news source can reveal.

The group claimed its own previous research showed trusts “significantly overpaid” for their energy, which effectively means that energy managers were not doing their jobs properly.

Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance said: “The NHS employs far too many people in jobs that do nothing to deliver frontline patient care. It’s time for health chiefs to launch a war on waste and ensure the NHS budget is spent on patients rather than squandered on bureaucrats.”

However, Lord Redesdale, CEO of the Energy Managers Association said the criticism shows a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the role of energy managers.

He said: “Hospitals are complex 24/7 operations that are very energy intensive. Controlling energy cost is a constant battle. At a time when energy prices look set to rise significantly over the next five years, this will mean that the NHS will have to contribute more to the energy suppliers and in a time of limited budgets find the savings from frontline services.”

In spite of the Taxpayers’ Alliance statement, the truth of the matter is that energy managers will save multiple times their own salary, especially when using a top-range, efficient Building Energy Management system, such as HeatingSave.

Advanced BEMS (Building Energy Management System) solutions represent one of the top energy efficiency measures organizations of any scope and size can turn to, given the fact that they enable a superior level of control over the heating system and its extensive optimization, thus leading to lower overall consumption levels.

And this is exactly where the HeatingSave system might prove its worth, since our solution allows customers to achieve immediately savings of up to 30%+ on their energy bills. This is achieved by optimizing the energy consumption levels within any building with the help of an advanced heat-loss algorithm that creates a specific profile for any building and based on that, switches heating on later if its warm and off earlier if its cold.

It also automatically adjusts your boiler depending on how warm it is outside – save up to another 10%.

Furthermore, the system also offers an advanced automatic occupancy detection system that allows the temperature to reduce to a background when areas are not used and quickly brought up to temperature when they are being used.

If you’d like to find out more about the HeatingSave Building Energy Management System, then simply contact our dedicated product team, they’ll help you get all the necessary information and answer all of your queries.