HFMA 2019: Working together for patients

05 December 2019 Seamus Ward

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He outlined how the Leeds trust has moved from cost improvement to waste reduction as a way of delivering efficiencies. This has helped engage clinicians, as has the production of information through its Scan4Safety work.Berridge l

It was vital to engage clinicians. ‘They know a lot more about the patient than you do. You know more about finance than they will. But working together you will get the best for the patient in the most economic way to enable the control totals to be met.’

The trust has held waste reduction days, bringing together clinicians, operational managers and finance staff to identify and eradicate unwarranted variations and share best practice across the trust.

‘In one case a clinician and finance business partner presented on how they had created 1,000 extra appointments with no added resource,’ he said.

Mr Berridge added that accurate coding was vital – though the trust uses the aligned incentives contract it was important to get coding right as it could lead to enhanced income for the trust and ensured specialties are not incorrectly labelled as being outliers in mortality, for example.

Working together to implement Lean processes in theatres, staff identified £128,000 of stock that was out of date. They also found 900 implements on trays for surgeons who had retired. Despite this, the trays had been ‘religiously resterilised every three months’. ‘These are now back in circulation,’ he added. 

Incentives were important in reducing waste. ‘They will see the incentive if they can see a new image intensifier or dialysis machines. We have tripled our spending on medical capital equipment over the last three years – it means something to them and is an added incentive to take the next step.’