Patients First

The Royal Surrey County Hospital's major transformation programme Patients First was established in May 2008 to help the Trust achieve its vision of becoming a national leader in safe, compassionate and convenient care. The programme has gone from strength to strength during the last four years and has led to better experiences for patients, shorter waiting times, new innovative treatments and financial savings. 

The Patients First team members use lean and Six Sigma tools and techniques to support clinical and non-clinical teams across the hospital to deliver the best patient care.  Six Sigma and Lean have been used extensively in engineering and car manufacturing for decades but are relatively new to the health sector.  However, the Trust’s experience demonstrates that these techniques can be applied with great success to healthcare. 

The Royal Surrey County Hospital's major transformation programme Patients First scooped a Lean Healthcare Academy 2013 award for sharing best practice.

Patients First Programme Director, Ann Spence, said: ”The Lean Healthcare Academy award recognises the work that the Patients First team and the Royal Surrey County Hospital have done in successfully adopting and implementing lean concepts and techniques, in addition to proactively sharing good outcomes and spreading best practice across work areas and organisations.

“The team was absolutely delighted with the award and while we recognise that Royal Surrey is still at an early stage of our lean journey it is very encouraging to receive recognition of the work done to date.”

As well as winning the Sharing Best Practice Award, the Royal Surrey team were finalists in the Improving Services through Training & Development Award and the Sustained Improvement Award.

The Patients First team have supported numerous projects with clinical and non-clinical teams across the hospital and these have contributed to many successes within the Trust;

Haematuria Patients:
Patient pathway reduced from 65 days to 7 days.

Medical wards:
More efficient use of medical beds has generated savings of almost £3million since 2009

Productive ward:
Direct nursing time with Patients increased from 32% to 52% with more work ongoing.

Pathology:
Improved turnaround time for Cytology specimens from 75% to 96% completed within 7 days.

Theatre use:
Increased theatre efficiency has saved more than £500,000.

Training:
We have developed a detailed internal training programme, so that as many of our staff as possible are able to run successful lean projects. This, combined with awareness raising sessions, means that all staff are able to continually improve the way we deliver care to our patients.

National Recognition:
The Patients First programme has been recognised as one of the most successful clinical transformation programmes in the NHS and our Enhanced Recovery programme has been featured in a national Ministerial summit. 

Since its inception the programme has moved from delivering small projects to now looking at whole systems across the hospital.  While there is still an important place for independent improvement projects, the need for transformation across the hospital and wider health community in order to achieve the best outcomes for patients and greater efficiencies for the health economy is more important than ever. 

There are currently over 35 projects underway across the Trust.

We update our staff and patients regularly using the Hospitals magazine- "The Royal Supporter" and via a monthly e-bulletin. Also look out for information about us in local papers and on the website for further updates and achievements.

In the modern hospital environment there is always a constant need to drive for efficiency, reduce waste, and maintain a safe and high quality service that puts the patient first.   

If you would like to speak to one of the Patients First team about the transformation work undertaken to date,  please email
rsc-tr.Patients1st@nhs.net

or call 01483 571122 ext 6641

Feedback:

If you have any feedback or would like to speak to somebody regarding a recent experience at the Royal Surrey please email rsc-tr.Feedback@nhs.net or call our Patient Advuce and Liaison Team on 01483 571122 ext 2059