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WQ.12/2018
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES
BY SENATOR S.C. FERGUSON
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 16TH JANUARY 2018
Question
Since the launch of the LEAN initiative within Health and Social Services, will the Minister advise, to date –
- how much has been spent in total on LEAN initiative;
- how much LEAN costs annually;
- how much has been saved as a result of LEAN projects on an annual basis;
- how many projects have been completed;
- how many projects are currently in progress;
- how many Chief Officers, senior managers and consultants have been involved and whether a senior manager or senior consultant has been involved in every project?
Answer
- A total of £2.1m has been spent over the five years that the Lean programme has been running in HSS. The set-up costs over 2012 – 2013 were primarily for an external company, Capita, to provide training to launch the Lean programme. From 2014, the costs represent the in-house team, now named the Quality Improvement Team, which was initially funded by Public Sector Reform monies and is now met by the HSS budget. The table below shows expenditure in each year.
2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | Total |
£248,000 | £129,000 | £466,000 | £437,000 | £408,000 | £450,000 | £2,138,000 |
- £450k in 2017 made up of staff costs and non-staff costs.
- The LEAN initiative is now saving over £724,000 annually on a recurrent basis.
- In excess of 50
The primary aim of the Lean Quality Improvement Programme is to provide higher quality, safer care to patients and service users across Health and Social Services. Many projects deliver numerous significant quality and safety benefits which cannot be quantified as financial savings.
Some examples are below:
The Corbiere Ward Rapid Process Improvement Workshop (RPIW) held in October 2016 delivered a 29% reduction in length of stay for patients. This enabled 65 more patients to receive treatment on the ward during the winter pressure period 01/11/2016 – 28/02/2017.
The Social Work Assessment RPIW held in February 2017 reduced the average waiting time from receipt of referral to 1st contact, from 54 days to 4 days.
The Beauport Ward Stock RPIW held in May 2017 resulted in Health Care Assistants having 66 more hours per year to care for patients.
Since starting the use of Rapid Process Improvement Workshops, 107 staff have attended them and received training before delivery of improvement using their own ideas. When surveyed at the end of the workshops, 100% of staff agree the workshop was useful and 92% confirmed it will improve their services.
Successful Lean Quality Improvement removes waste in processes, enabling our highly trained staff to spend more time providing high quality care to patients and service users.
- 15 in total – 5 Rapid Process Improvement Workshops, 10 Yellow Belt Projects.
- Chief Officers have not been involved on a project basis, but the overall programme is reviewed fortnightly by the Health and Social Services Chief Executive Officer and Corporate Directors. Senior Managers at director level sponsor all Rapid Process Improvement Workshops. This role involves developing the scope for improvement, setting targets to be achieved and empowering and supporting front line staff to design, test and deliver changes using Lean methodology. Yellow Belt projects are also sponsored by managers, often at senior grade. Consultants have been involved in some projects as required and Associate Specialist-level doctors have attended two Rapid Process Improvement Workshops. A senior manager or senior consultant has not been involved in every project as some are small-scope departmental initiatives which do not require this level of involvement.