Our consultant team will request a range of basic trust-wide information from the client, principally relating to cost, activity and quality of service performance of the Trust over the previous year or two.

​

GKT will undertake a focused benchmarking exercise, using comparative our own benchmarking  database consisting over 130 Trusts and 40 PCTs. Our  database covers most clinical and non-clinical services and functions.

We will conduct structured interviews with the key service managers of those services that form the scope of this review in order that we gain a good understanding of the services being provided.  It is vitally important that any comparative analysis is based on like for like comparisons and it is not unusual for the range of service provision to vary significantly from Trust to Trust.  For example, a Portering service in one Trust may include Theatre, X-Ray and A&E portering, as well as providing security and transport services in addition to undertaking postal distribution, meal trolley delivery/collection, specimen and drug deliveries, etc. Whereas in other Trusts some or all of these services may not be the responsibility of the portering service, the costs of resources for providing these aspects of service delivery may feature within other departmental budgets.

​

Establishing a good understanding of your services is therefore imperative if the resultant analysis is to be meaningful.

Our team will also examine the wider performance issues of the Trust in order to ensure that those services that are the focus of this review are not unduly affecting performance elsewhere within the Trust.  To illustrate, if we consider Portering services once more; any comparison of a portering service should include an examination of how this service is impacting upon areas such as Theatres.  If the Trust’s operating theatres are kept waiting because there are insufficient portering resources, the Trust may be shown to have low costs but poor value for money.  In this way, our benchmarking approach will differentiate between cost and value for money.

In order to further enhance our understanding of the value for money position, our Consultant team will seek to establish a good understanding of the quality of service being provided by each service that is included within the review.  As well as reviewing the latest audit reports, reviews and patient satisfaction surveys, our team will undertake some direct observations of the service quality, with the assistance of the client team, if required.

Having established a suitable understanding of the service provision at the Trust, the levels of service being provided, the costs and quality of these services, our team will then undertake comparisons of this performance with that of other Trusts.  Typically, we would seek to identify around 20-30 Trusts that are the most comparable with the client organisation.  Adjustments to the comparator information will be made to ensure a like for like comparison and so that the results are presented to the Trust in its own “currency”, i.e. the benchmark Portering costs will relate to the type of Portering service that the client Trust enjoys.

Our team will analyse the performance of each service against a range of differing performance metrics, as this will enable a better overall picture to be formed.  Individual metrics can be misleading and often inappropriate, to turn to our Porters once more as a means of illustration; typically Portering performance is measured in cost/m², however, our approach enables us to consider a number of additional measures such as the Portering cost in relation to outpatient activity, A&E attendances, Theatre activity, Radiology activity, Orthopaedic beds, Orthopaedic outpatients, total number of Trust beds, etc, etc,. In this way the benchmarking analysis provides more meaningful results. Where all the performance indicators are pointing in the same direction, it provides a much stronger evidence base upon which the Trust’s management team can decide their future course of action.

​

It should be noted that benchmarking and value testing are ultimately a subjective assessment of performance, due to the need to make the adjustments mentioned above. In that respect, our team are always very careful to reinforce the limitations of the approach in all presentational material.

Finally our Consultant Team will present the findings of the benchmarking exercise to the project sponsor and if required, to the Trust’s Executive Management Team. The findings will be contained within a written report, having been thoroughly validated as part of our ISO9001 accredited quality assurance system.  Please note, the benchmarking data through the necessity of commercial confidentiality will be presented in an anonymous format.

​

If you would like to find out more about our Benchmarking service, discuss the types of benchmarks that we are able to provide or to request a costed proposal for your Trust, please contact us through the link on the main menu.