OUR APPROACH

The preliminary stages of the project saw the our Transformation Team engaged in a detailed assessment of the Trust’s financial performance and evaluation of current working practices, systems, staffing and organisation. This part of the project included a detailed cost comparison exercise, which enabled the Programme Board to view the performance of each service against that of its peers, and in thereby allowed the Trust to identify areas for potential improvement.

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Having identified a number of areas where there appeared to be scope for cost improvement, our Project Team worked with small groups (service managers, senior staff and clinicians) to develop possible alternate service configurations, organisational structures, staffing skill-mix, processes and systems in order to deliver a lower cost, better value for money model. These outline reconfigurations were developed and tested with stakeholders before being presented to the Trust’s Programme Board for approval, which was duly forthcoming.

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As we moved into the implementation phase of the programme, our Team remained engaged with stakeholders at all levels of the organisation as well as number of external stakeholders, providing guidance, support and drive to the programme. Not inconsiderable amounts of time were dedicated to communicating with staff at all levels in order to explain the agreed programme, its objectives and the benefits that would follow, whilst at the same time dealing with the anxieties that such a major change programme engenders.  Throughout, our Team made themselves available to discuss issues with staff at any time, as we never underestimate the importance of this aspect of the programme management responsibility.

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OUTCOMES

The programme involved the implementation of over 70 different initiatives covering pretty well all of the Trust’s services. Our Team provided support and guidance in a number of areas, as required by the Trust. The type and degree of support would vary according to the complexity of the initiative, the needs of individual managers for support and the importance of the specific initiative to the overall programme.  

 

Our Team was therefore involved in a range of activities including;

 

• Organisational re-design

• Development of revised staffing structures, skill-mix and reward strategies

• Business process reengineering

• Application of Lean Working methodologies

• Data Analysis

• Business Case Development

• Communicating with staff

• Redesign of rosters

• Procurement exercises

• Negotiating with suppliers (bed contract, orthopaedic prostheses)

• Evaluating alternate technologies

• Assessing the profitability of services

• Marketing services to other organisations

• Redesigning outpatient clinic timetables

• Workload balancing (medical secretaries)

• Theatre scheduling

• Consultant job planning

Over the two year period in which we were supporting the Trust through the implementation of this programme, the Trust was able to reduce its expenditure by circa £5million per annum.