Lean transformation ….all that glitters is not gold!
It is often said by cynics that Lean applied in healthcare will be consigned to the scrap heap along with other approaches to reform before it.
This is almost certainly true unless we as believers in the power of Lean promote the difference between transactional change and transformational change.
Transformational change is what the NHS desperately needs (and the rhetoric is replete with the word ‘transformation’) yet many organisations (public sector, commercial and academic alike) misguidedly pursue what they believe to be transformational change, but is in fact transactional change.
Transactional change in my view, even if it is combined with tools lifted from the Lean toolbox, will ultimately fail to deliver.

