An acute hospital in Kent initiated a transformation programme in response to decreasing performance and quality:
We developed 4 workstreams to address the challenges faced by the trust:
A system-wide diagnostic to develop an accurate and granular picture of the root causes of poor performance in Emergency Care, and identify the areas of focus for the programme
Improving operational efficiency to provide improved flow and high-quality care
Introducing operational discipline to site management through 6 initiatives
Reviewing the bed requirements for each specialty and area of the pathway, and the adequacy of the current footprint to accommodate each specialty’s needs
Aligning leaders on the core purpose and building the tools and capabilities to engage their teams and the wider Trust in this shared vision
The Trust improved its relative 4hr performance (T1) ranking from 112 in Mar 2019 to 59 in Jan 2020 (out of 122 Trusts).
In addition, there were improvements in several other quality and safety indicators, e.g.:
Decrease in aggregated patient delay by -6% compared to last year, and establishment of a Clinical Decision Unit
Decrease in Medical clerking time from ~4 hours to ~2 hours and a significant increase in the average number of HOT Medical patients seen in SDEC
Significant improvements in the quality of board rounds across the hospital and 100% increase in the utilisation of the discharge lounge
Decrease in the number of medical outliers from ~50 to less than 20
Reduction in mixed sex breaches by 73%
The organisation is better prepared and operationally ready to deal with future challenges, e.g. increased pressures and complexities of COVID-19
