Grip & Control

We secured savings of £3m for the Trust; £1.2m through run rate controls and £1.8m through CIP delivery.

Background

We were asked to bring new urgency, grip and control to the recovery programme, help manage and where possible reduce the expenditure run-rate and oversee delivery of the cost improvement programme.

Key priorities were:

• Control of temporary staffing spend for nursing.

• Closure of escalation wards.

• Delivery of demand and capacity reviews in orthopaedics and ophthalmology.

• We were also commissioned to develop a CIP programme for the following financial year.

How We Helped

• Reduction in temporary staffing spend for ward nursing.

• Support for changes to staffing for nursing in the Acute Medical Unit.

• Closure of escalation wards.

• Detailed demand and capacity reviews for Surgical specialities confirming agreed PA position for consultant staff.

• Supporting further improvement in outpatient productivity.

• Reviewing and reporting on the capacity and capability of the trust’s PMO and transformation teams.

• Maximising the FIP delivery against the plan in Q1.

• Supporting the Chief Operating Officer in driving planned activity.

• Support of Surgical Division regarding delivery of a revised theatre rota.

• Support to the Emergency Department regarding the delivery of revised medical rotas.

• Review of junior doctor rotas in the medical division with recommended improvements.

• Running a benchmarking exercise using model hospital and peer Trust data to identify benchmarked areas of opportunity/investigation.

Results

• During the course of our work we secured savings of £3m for the Trust. This was a combination of £1.2m through run rate controls and a further £1.8m through CIP delivery.

• We also worked extensively with the Trust to enhance their governance and accountability framework. This included establishing weekly meetings for directorate review of activity, performance, finances, workforce and targets. We made sure every meeting was attended by an Exec. The majority were attended by the COO and DoF. We also worked with the Trust to develop a comprehensive suite of reports for these meetings.

• We also ran challenge sessions for ward nursing which delivered significant reductions in the use of temporary staffing and helped the wards keep to budget.

• Kingsgate worked with the PMO and divisional management/Executives to formulate a FIP plan for the new financial year.