NHS Leeds Community Healthcare embarks on ‘Lean Machine’ journey
Virtual College's Lean Healthcare Academy is working closely with NHS Leeds to transform the way it works across Children and Family Services.
Patients and staff at NHS Leeds Community Healthcare are benefitting from its Children and Family Services becoming ‘Lean’.
The children’s admin team is the first in the organisation to look at cutting down on administration procedures and embracing strategies similar to those used in industry to improve efficiencies, boost productivity and cut costs.
The Lean project is being run in partnership with the Ilkley-based Lean Healthcare Academy, which delivers online training courses. NHS Leeds Community Healthcare is using e-learning to transform the way it works across Children and Family Services, in Child Health and Wellbeing, Complex Care and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
The admin team operates from a number of sites across Leeds, with a combined staff of around 130 people and a working environment that presents many challenges. The project team first embraced Lean in January this year. Since then it has:
· restructured and improved filing and clinical letters processes
· standardised medical records
· made more productive use of limited space for team members
· greatly enhanced lines of communication between staff.
Lean teams have to date thrown out over 50 bags of rubbish - for example, out of date forms and documents that were no longer needed - while contents of boxes are now clearly labelled, making them quicker and easier to find.
Buoyed up by their early successes, the teams are now working to maintain the improvements and introduce similar formats for other admin processes - with the ultimate aim of rolling out the lessons learned more widely across the organisation.
Pam Hill, Head of Service for School Health and Specialist Services, said: “We must be seen to be responsible, responsive and more accountable. Admin staff are really excited about what they are doing in successfully working towards set standards and targets. Lean has definitely empowered them and can only help improve the service we are able to offer to patients.”
Joanne Davy, Service Improvement Facilitator for Children and Family Services, is responsible for delivering the training. She said: “Lean is not rocket science, but simple common sense. The more we have demonstrated success, the more people have wanted to adopt Lean.
“Our senior management team has also been impressed with the successes to date and is itself keen to use the Lean approach in relation to how they work together, organise themselves and communicate. We have made a very positive start and now have the potential to develop Lean in other areas of NHS Leeds Community Healthcare.”
Matt Ward, Deputy Director of Operations for Children and Family Services, has been a supporter of the project since the beginning. He said: “One of our corporate objectives is to provide the highest quality of care for our patients. By improving the way we work within our organisation we improve services for the people we treat. Even if it’s only getting appointment letters out more quickly, every part of what we do makes a difference.”
Wendy Gauntley, manager of the Lean Healthcare Academy, said: “Lean can and does work, and in the case of Leeds NHS is not only streamlining internal administration procedures, but also resulting in significant time and cost-savings. In addition, service users across the NHS Leeds region will benefit from a more efficient and ever-improving service.
“Our Lean facilitators are now working successfully with primary and secondary care providers, as well as in the wider health and social care communities, across the UK. Together, we are making a real difference.”