As part of the wider NHS Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) agenda, NICE and the UK Cochrane Centre have teamed up to summarise new Cochrane reviews, that have shown an intervention to be either unsafe or cost ineffective, in a format that can be readily applied to the NHS.

The summaries, called Cochrane quality and productivity topics, highlight potential disinvestment opportunities that can be used by the NHS to meet its overall QIPP targets, and include calculations of potential cost savings if implemented.

Topics are published each month, some of which will be highlighted in Eyes on Evidence. To date, 44 Cochrane topics have been published on NHS Evidence.

This months Cochrane quality and productivity summary evaluates colloids versus crystalloids for fluid resuscitation in critically ill patients. The review of 23 trials including data on 7754 patients could find no mortality benefit between using crystalloid intravenous fluids (such as 0.9% saline) and colloids (such as Gelofusine) for the fluid resuscitation of critically ill patients. If 0.9% saline was used instead of Gelofusine, based on costings estimated on 12 December 2011, it would produce a saving of £4.18 per 500ml bag of intravenous fluid and reduce the incidence of possible anaphylactoid reactions to colloids.