Efficiency Award

Endorsed and sponsored by

The drive for improved efficiency in UK healthcare services remains as strong as ever. While many healthcare organisations are returning surpluses currently, this is often earmarked for service development. The return to more traditional levels of growth in national settlements coupled with demanding national efficiency targets means organisations need to find ways of improving the value for money and quality of the healthcare they commission and/or deliver.  The HFMA Efficiency Award will focus on the role of finance in supporting the delivery of improvements in efficiency. It seeks to recognise innovative approaches to cost improvement either within a specific service or activity or across the whole organisation. 

Further detail on this Award can be found in HFMA’s 2008 Awards brochure.

Winner: 2gether NHS Foundation Trust 

2gether NHS Foundation Trust was given the 2008 Efficiency Award for a project that redesigned services and increased productivity, while delivering a £1.2m saving. The Gloucestershire trust has five strategic service units (SSUs) and during 2006/07 and 2007/08 one of these – adults of working age mental health services – was redesigned to better fit the emerging needs of the population.

The judges were impressed with the project because finance was extensively involved in the process. A senior accountant, Tina Benson, spent around 80% of her time working on the project. Work included calculating how the existing budget could be used to fund the redesign, compiling and monitoring savings plans, creating a new range of cost centres and working closely with human resources to ensure payroll and HR systems fitted in.

The judges said the project clearly demonstrated wide involvement and integration into the clinical teams. The project has resulted in a valuable development; the support and trust of the consultant body for the finance team, and notably the management accountant ‘This creates huge potential for the future,’ they added.

The trust believes the full involvement of finance, together with Ms Benson’s enthusiasm and commitment, was pivotal to the success of the project. It says: ‘The project was delivered on time, within budget and the savings plans were achieved in full. This may not have been the case if she had not been fully involved in the project from the beginning to the end, as budget allocation and robust team structures were a vital part of the success of the service redesign.’

Further detail on the winning entry is available in the HFMA 2008 Awards Supplement.

What the judges said

“The project has resulted in fundamental changes in the provision of services that have actively benefited patient experience, despite being lower cost, with several of the developments being celebrated as best practice”

Further detail on the entry requirements, judging criteria and judges for this particular award can be found in the HFMA 2008 Awards Brochure.