Abstract:
Not unlike the majority of NHS organisations Bedford Hospital NHS Trust has endured tough times. With these tough times have come challenges demanding hard decisions. The challenges have not been unique to this Trust though. They continue to dominate the national NHS agenda with new and varied initiatives such as QIPP being launched with increasing regularity. Some of these challenges are—overcoming significant financial deficits, driving up productivity, increasing quality while becoming more efficient.
The Radiology team and management had identified a number of questions and challenges and were looking for a new, fresh approach that would not damage the morale of staff and avoid ‘slash and burn’ decisions being taken such as, are we operating in the most efficient and effective way? Are we spending our budget properly? We need to analyse demand/capacity/activity/productivity – do we have the funded resources to deliver what is required now, in the short, medium and long term? Are we giving a quality service to our customers? How do we match up against our competitors?
The Alturos approach was selected by the clinical team because it is proven in other Acute Trusts and is designed with skills transfer at its core. So although Alturos are an external provider they are not doing Lean for or to the Trust but with their teams to further develop them through experiential learning as they apply Lean in their own world. Beyond the requisite Lean expertise Alturos was able to offer the Trust the support of specialists in benchmarking, capacity/demand modelling and Lean accounting and financial impact analysis.
