Mid Yorkshire Hospitals is a £300m hospital based on 3 key sites across Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury. It serves a population of 500,000 people from the districts of Wakefield and North Kirklees.

Business Challenges

• Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust had embarked upon a turnaround plan that was making significant progress.
• The Trust had reached the stage where they needed to test planned-in techniques that put their customers and staff at the centre of a programme of continuous improvement.
• A pilot scheme was launched to discover if Lean working would deliver that objective. 

Solutions

• The Trust decided to pilot the Lean process in two areas of the Cataract Unit – Theatres and Outpatients.
• The purpose was to identify the benefits that Lean working offered along one patient pathway – throughput in the Cataract Unit – and demonstrate how the benefits could then be implemented in Theatres and Outpatients.
• Working together we identified sponsors, a core team and additional contributors to the pilot schemes, in order to ensure all relevant parties were included.
• As stakeholder commitment was critical to success, the Ophthalmology team selected a consultant to represent the interests of all the consultants involved. An important part of the solution process was to reach a common understanding of ‘Why Lean?’ for the Trust generally, and for the Cataract Unit in particular.
• Lean was deemed an appropriate assessment methodology because it specifically addresses key issues that already existed:
• Low process definition/maturity
• A requirement for early improvement gains
• The need to engage and involve the people who use and own the process
• Lack of accurate process and cost data
• Different systems in each of the hospitals under Mid Yorks’ remit. 

Benefits

• Significant early wins were achieved to the benefit of patients, staff and the Trust, showing improvements in productivity and sustainable changes in service, without any significant increase in capital expenditure.
• Patient pathways were standardised and process steps reduced from 42 to 35 (at most). Waiting times for cataract operations were reduced from 25 weeks to a maximum of 10 – a 60% improvement.
• Increased productivity options using current resources ranged from 16% to 40%. In Outpatients, the patient flow cycle was shortened and queues reduced. Waiting time can be halved if all the Lean event recommendations are implemented
• Just as importantly, there was very strong engagement from the whole of the Trust team, who demonstrated an immediate willingness to change how they worked – which meant that improvements could begin to accrue immediately. 

Download the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust 'Lean Solutions for Healthcare'