Twin and Single Theatres Project

This NHS Trust is a world renowned centre for the diagnosis and treatment of bone and joint problems. Treating patients from across Birmingham and the West Midlands it provides one of the largest spinal services in the country, and is one of only a handful of centres for the diagnosis and treatment of bone and soft tissue tumours. KM&T carried out diagnostic activity and the results highlighted substantial cost effective opportunities within the Trust to improve the patient experience and support the long term viability of the Trust. By initially concentrating upon improving the Theatre Department the Trust believes they can make a difference to not only the patient and staff experience but also to the Theatre utilisation through effective scheduling, start up and turnarounds. This activity supports the Trusts long term expansion and efficiency strategy.

Initial Observations

• Some Theatre sessions were not used leaving them sat empty
• Theatre operations were not started on time, causing back logs at the start of the day and patient operations being cancelled at the end of the day
• Poor utilisation of Theatre on lease from the Private Sector
• Low Theatre staff morale
• Ineffective communication and planning
• Poorly defined roles and responsibilities for the management team
• High levels of staff sickness
• Poor levels of house keeping Improvement Strategy
• Create an effective standard Theatre scheduling system
• To improve staff ability to effectively plan and measure the Theatres activity by adopting Lean tools and techniques

Lean Deployment

• Map the patient flow, identify and eliminate waste and bottlenecks : Staff walked the patient pathway, to view it through the eyes of the patient. Improvements were made to the house keeping and layout in order to improve the patient journey
• Status boards were designed to enable all levels of the organisation to immediately understand Theatre performance
• A single Theatre model was created to reduce the downtime between procedures
• A twin Theatre model was created which maximised the use of staff whilst simultaneously reducing downtime between procedures
• Roles and Responsibilities were deployed to the Theatre management teams to improve Theatre organisation and communication
• An effective Theatre planning meeting was implemented to enable better communication and visibility of potential problems
• Workplace Organisation of anaesthetics rooms to introduce standard locations for equipment
• Scheduling implemented to manage holiday bookings
• Roistering system implemented to enable the unit to effectively use their resource

Results

 

Testimonial

KM&T is providing expertise and guidance at all levels of the Trust as part of our Excellent Health Transformation Programme. Together we are delivering demonstrable benefit in a number of areas that will take forward our strategic objectives and contribute to the long term financial prosperity of the Trust.

Steve Bloomer
Director of Finance