Anon, The guys and girls in supply and procurement in NHS hospitals arent like that. At least the ones I have met arent and I should know my mother is one of them. Each dept gets a budget and has to stick to it as close as possible as fiddling with numbers is a dodgy business and the government doesnt like different areas *borrowing* money from each other in times of need. And considering the procurement staff can only try and buy what the dept asks them to buy it is the department to blame and not necessarily a desk person. And considering they dont set the budgets you could in theory blame the governement for setting up budgets like they do. Perdysha p.s. I like your blog Reynolds