IBMS Congress

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Understanding your future staffing levels: assessing the impact of organisational change on your workforce

Organisational Change: Session 2

Education, Training & Management

Mr Chris Hunton, The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust

When I joined Mid Yorkshire Trust from Path Links in 2006, I came to a service in DH special measures, in a Trust that was £90M overspent, and with all services provided in triplicate. The service was managed in an un-coordinated way, with each service "fighting" the others for resources.

 The services were operated out of antiquated laboratories, in a hotch potch of buildings dating from 1948 temporary builds, to a purpose built (but outdated) estate from the 70’s. We were accredited with nobody, and were in denial as to the real quality of our services.

We first re-structured the management team, downsizing into a format for the future service model. Then we developed the “vision” of where we wanted to be in the future, with the mission statement “to be the best at what we do in Yorkshire”. We developed a quality team to drive our accreditation and address the Blood Safety and Quality Regulations, set a staffing model and budget for each area, and gave the Chiefs the role of Department Managers with the freedom run their departments within the staff model and budget allocated.

Driven by the PFI build of the new lab and Pinderfields, we set about the centralisation of Microbiology and Histopathology onto single sites, and the re-design of the mortuary service onto two sites – with dedicated Pathology Transport commissioned to support those service models.
During all of the changes from 2006 to present we:

• Reduced the pay budget
• Reduced the staff headcount
• Increased the number of tests performed by just over 370,000
• Increased the productivity per staff member
• Increased productivity per WTE
• Build a quality team and quality standards for all services
• Achieved CPA accreditation in all disciplines
• Achieved MHRA compliance and accreditation for the Blood Banks
• Achieved HTA accreditation for the mortuary service

Our current project is the procurement of new analytical systems in Haematology, Biochemistry, Immunoassay and Serology under a Managed Service Contract. This is a 10-15 year contract, with an initial value of approximately £18M. This will build a partnership with our Primary Contractor to develop and market our service to surrounding users in both public and private sectors.

We will then progress to a further round of skill mix changes and lean working to push that asset to deliver the necessary CIP and Carter savings to the Trust.