Archipelago Healthcare - Better Healthcare in Mind

Archipelago helps ambulance service commercial division ‘make the turn’

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:38:16 +0000

Archipelago selected from a field of 10 other suppliers to support the Commercial Division of South Central Ambulance Service. The Division has Board representation and an approved strategy to generate income for the Trust through the provision of patient transport, call centre and logistical services to the NHS. In 2010 The Division was failing to make its required contribution to the centre.
Archipelago fielded a team of three consultants over 10 months first conducting an efficiency review then supporting a programme financial turnaround. At the point at which Archipelago disengaged from the task in October 2011, run rate had improved by the target figure of £1m, after operational overheads and 4 of the 6 businesses within the Division were delivering or exceeding their target operating margin.

Will Hancock, Chief Executive of South Central Ambulance Service, commented “Archipelago Healthcare Ltd’s work in direct support of our Commercial Division’s Financial Turnaround has made a tangible difference; a lot of good work has been done. Archipelago has helped us to drive cultural change, which is taking hold, resulting in the development of a performance oriented culture. We have been able to point to the Turnaround as a positive example for Monitor of the Trust’s ability to manage its businesses, as we progress our application for Foundation Trust status”

Latest news from the organisation indicates that they have succeeded in sustaining the turnaround and meeting their contribution target after operational overheads.

Archipelago sets up a new Hospital at Home for Oxfordshire Health Foundation Trust

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:30:45 +0000

Archipelago Healthcare Ltd was commissioned to develop a new Hospital at Home (sub-acute nursing) Service for Oxford Health Foundation Trust. The service was developed to provide a timely sub-acute nursing response in situations where, without that support, a hospital admission would inevitably result. The team can also facilitate a discharge for patients who continue to require monitoring or therapy but do not need to be in hospital to receive it and whose other care needs are catered for.
The team are made up of specialist nurses who have a range of skills and can: intervene for short periods under GP direction to monitor patients, manage medication and deliver certain types of IV Therapy.
A lot of work has gone into building a safe and adaptable operating model able to deliver good continuity of care. Since launch the model has been evolved further to meet the needs of GPs who may wish to use the service. The service now sits within Oxford Health’s urgent care directorate and is meeting its commissioned productivity targets.

Archipelago win tender to support South Central Ambulance Service

admin — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:11:50 +0000

Archipelago are delighted to have been selected from a field of 10 other suppliers to support the Commercial Division of South Central Ambulance Service as they further develop the competitiveness of their Commercial Service Division.

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust (SCAS) has a very successful Commercial Department, which has Board representation and an approved strategy to generate income through the provision of:
Patient Transport Services, including excellent bariatric capabilities
Logistics Services – delivering and collecting items such as medical records, pathology specimens, patient medical records and mail; and providing a staff shuttle service in East Berkshire
Managed Integrated Community Equipment Services (ICES) – procurement, storage, installation, collection, decontamination, recycling, repair & maintenance
GP Out of Hours – Call Handling and GP driving services
Commercial Training – First Aid at work and Emergency First Aid courses, including Advanced Levels
For the Commercial Services Department, these are core services provided by dedicated teams focused on providing quality patient care and high quality services.

This is a task to which Archipelago is well suited, drawing on past experience gained in each service area.

Archipelago expect to provide a range of support services including: Mission Analysis, Financial Diagnostics, Operational Diagnostics and Training in order to help the Division’s consolidate upon its strong market position and further develop its business.

Archipelago draws on frontline transformation experience to develop training, workshops and seminars

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:22:24 +0000

Archgipelago’s focus is frontline led transformation of services, improving quality and reducing cost. During the course of interventions Archipelago develop approaches and training modules which seem to be needed frequently by clients to address similar challenges in the future. Such training is meant as an adjunct to Lean intervention, but may be use as a standalone solution in some cases. We have developed training in: mission analysis and action planning (used to develop operating plans which empower frontline staff), Lean intervention leader coaching, search training (devised to help ward staff halt the ingress of illicit drugs, weapons and dangerous objects) and situational and threat awareness to help community based staff to protect themselves while at work in the community. Archipelago also offer a series of workshops and seminars which can be tailored to clients needs. Training, Workshops and Seminars…

Archipelago at work in Community Healthcare

admin — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:51:01 +0000

Archipelago is delighted to be working with clinicians and managers at Community Healthcare Oxfordshire as they develop their community services.
Community Healthcare Oxfordshire provides a wide range of community health services: Inpatient and outpatient care including rehabilitation in community hospitals; community and specialist nursing including district nursing and continuing care and rehabilitation in the community.
Archipelago is applying its methodology in order to assist frontline staff to enhance quality of care and improved patient flow.

Archipelago works with South Central Ambulance Service

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:12:56 +0000

Archipelago Healthcare Ltd have recently completed work with South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service which provides pre-arranged transportation for patients to and from their hospital appointments and often between healthcare settings, such as one hospital to another. This service operates in an open market in which the service competes against other providers, often private companies, for contracts with hospitals.

Patient Transport Services for the Northern SCAS area of operations were consolidated at Northern House Bicester in order to achieve better economies of scale and synergies. The control room struggled to get off the ground and in August 2009 call waiting times for wards and practices booking journeys were excessive. By Spring data suggested that some improvements had occurred but call volumes were as high as 800 per day and abandonment rate was at 30%. Staff were demoralised and stressed.

Archipelago were commissioned by the Manager of PTS with support from the Director of Transformation, principally to address the pressure being placed upon the control room (call volumes and abandonment rate), although as the three day operational diagnostic illustrated these statistics were symptomatic of operational problems on the ground particularly at transport operations bases. For this reason Archipelago widened the scope of the task and instigated measures to affect the wider operation.

Archipelago orchestrated a staff meeting and prepared leaders to appeal to staff to permit a rapid change to shift patterns. The staff gave unanimous consent when they heard the presentation of the Archipelago diagnostic. Actions taken were numerous and selected on the basis of the ease with which they could be completed and their impact on the operation (although it in the event, some actions which should have been straight forward i.e. the activation of agent and application displays that would allow supervisors to balance demand and capacity in the control room took weeks due to scarce IT / telecoms engineering support).

Archipelago worked alongside staff to deliver changes in many key areas of the operation, a selection of these include:

• Adjustments to Contact Centre 6 system – transition to single logon, dynamic switching, live application (lines) and agent displays (staff) that allowed supervisors to manage the control room.
• Adjustments to Cleric – use of SMS messaging, use of cancellation pop-ups, development of failure logging, use of vehicle capacity layout features to name a few.
• The development of a optimised planning process for Oxon and Bucks calculated to reduce mistakes.
• Support to supervisor recruitment using specially designed competencies and competency based interviewing. Supervisor training in objective setting and appraisal, control room management.
• Instigation of transport operations managers meetings to address short comings in bases (i.e. management of: mobile phones, vehicle service schedules, rota management).
• Instigation of a pilot to extend the use of the On-line Booking System to capture increasing percentages of bookings on-line.
• Set up arrangements for regular data delivery and analysis to give staff an awareness of and excitement at their progress.

The results were pleaseing for us and most importantly for the client:

• Crew Lines – Calls relating to ‘same day journey cancellations’ and crew calls (previously handled using mobile phones approx 100 per day) were redirected to the Day Control. This ensured that cancellations were quickly routed to crews to ensure resources were not wasted. As a result call volumes on crew lines were increased by 50% over the period, to 285 per day, however through related transformational initaitives, capacity was created within Day Control to handle this. In spite of the increased volume of calls, abandonment rate was reduced by 63% from 30% to 11%.
• Hospital Lines – Average calls offered decreased by 49% over the period from 560 to 284 call per day, callers were getting through first time and the ‘failures events’ which led to high call volumes were decreasing. Abandonment rate reduced from 35% to 10.25%.
• Abort rate fell well below industry norms and was as low as 6% in April for journeys related to the Oxford PCT (focus for the intervention).
• There is still a long way to go, but the service has made significant strides forward working in partnership with Archipelago

Lean Managers must practise 'Tough Love'

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:30:43 +0000

It is a kind of ‘tough love’ that good Lean operations managers practise in this field, but it is love none the less.

A common reaction to systems improvement methodologies (like Lean applied in healthcare) is to perceive them as somehow careless about patient care and concerned only with systems and processes. It is an understandable reaction until one realises that Lean managers are actually trying to shape organisational behaviour to make the organisation more responsive to patients needs, not less so. Some will hold that the emphasis on systems and processes aims to diminish the role of the individual clinician when in fact the reverse is true, the whole philosophy drives managers to understand patient need and up- skill their teams accordingly, developing a ‘learning organisation culture’.

The importance of systems and processes cannot be dismissed, individuals are important, of course they are, but surely patients in any setting seldom experience good quality care, safe care or even life saving care by the actions of one person working alone. Effective care is delivered by teams working together (often across boundaries) and to a common purpose. It is delivered by teams with shared operating principles and procedures, willing and able to communicate. Effective care is delivered by teams that have adopted clear systems and processes.

Another common temptation is to believe that grouping patients in some way is to ignore their distinct and unique needs, when in fact by grouping patients and thus understanding the demand that each group exerts and meeting it, better patient care for each individual is more certain.

It is a kind of ‘tough love’ that good Lean operations managers practice in this field, but it is love none the less.

Diagnostic for South Staffs Mental Health Trust

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:07:05 +0000

Archipelago just completed diagnostic work for South Staffordshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. We looked at the operation of their Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment services Observations, data collection and analysis took place over five days, culminating in feedback presentations. The Trust are taking findings to implementation alongside their ‘creating capable teams’ initiative.

Archipelago work ‘show cased’ on Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust Quality and Productivity Website

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:54:22 +0000

The OBMH Quality & Productivity site has been launched, designed to promote the sharing of ideas and information throughout OBMH and to enable the sharing of best practices.

Some Archipelago Healthcare Ltd’s extensive work with the Trust is ‘show cased’ in articles written by the staff with whom we have worked:

Community Acute Service Improvements Community Acute Services (Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment / Acute Day Hospitals): Changing the focus of Acute care to provide Step up and step down care

Showcased on Mental Health website

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:59:49 +0000

The OBMH Quality & Productivity site has been launched, designed to promote the sharing of ideas and information throughout OBMH and to enable the sharing of best practices.

Some of Archipelago Healthcare Ltd’s extensive work with the Trust is ‘showcased’ in articles written by the staff with whom we have worked:

Community Acute Service Improvements Community Acute Services (Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment / Acute Day Hospitals): Changing the focus of Acute care to provide Step up and step down care