Improving services and performance

Find out about

the leadership and management development programmes we are offering in the near future.

We provide leadership and management development and coaching to senior and middle managers, as well as clinicians.

We help organisations to re-structure, manage and develop their services to meet the needs of stakeholders. We are experienced in service review, streamlining care pathways and performance improvement.

Information prescriptions: getting ready to roll

For the past year, the Department of Health has funded 20 pilot sites, dealing with a variety of long-term health conditions, to test the concept of 'information prescriptions'. It is anticipated that, by 2010, information prescriptions will be offered to everyone in England with a long-term condition, directing them to specific sources of advice and information.

OPM has been working with the pilot sites to assess the impact of their work on their organisations and on service users. We've also been working on an online resource designed to help health and social care organistions benefit from what the pilots have learned. You can find more information here: http://www.informationprescription.info/index.html. The Information Prescriptions project is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of Macmillan Voice, which also includes an article by OPM director Ewan King.

Service review

We are experienced in reviewing both whole service areas and specific segments of the patient journey through the health and social care system. We help organisations develop ways to secure local access, while managing the inherent - and often highly complex - financial, political and workforce challenges with which they are faced.

OPM contact: Beth Anderson, Fellow, Organisational Development and Policy
email Beth

Examples

SHA: Review of acute paediatric services services were under significant pressure from a number of directions including availability of medical and nursing staff. OPM was invited to undertake a review of the current configuration and make recommendations on the future arrangements. The final report included actions for each of the current acute units and recommendations on future configuration and management arrangements. The whole process was designed to provide significant public and clinical engagement to provide ownership over the final recommendations.

A large NHS Trust: Review of cancer referral and booking methods the trust wanted to explore the feasibility of extending the cancer two-week waiting times to all cancers identified as urgent. The review included mapping referral and booking pathways and recommendations on the feasibility of a centralised booking service and whether it would require new investment.

Streamlining care pathways

We are adept at applying both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to help organisations and networks to streamline the patient pathway. By identifying blockages and bottlenecks in the supply chain, we are able to support the development of feasible, sustainable solutions to overcome these challenges, improve patient throughput, and increase capacity.

OPM contact: Beth Anderson, Fellow, Organisational Development and Policy
email Beth

Examples

London PCT: Models of care OPM brought together representatives from across a whole system to design new models of care for unscheduled services, maternity care and long-term conditions. This work involved patient pathway mapping techniques and the outputs fed into planning work that the PCT was undertaking for its LIFT schemes.

London PCTs: Service re-design We designed and facilitated a process that brought together the full range of service providers for a redeveloped community hospital site. The aim was to negotiate their space and design requirements and identify how the opportunities of co-location could be realised.

Performance improvement

• Who Cares, Wins The Burdett Trust for Nursing commissioned OPM to carry out a study to form the basis for the development for executive nurses and the boards of which they are members. This report is available from the Burdett Trust.

We seek to improve the quality and efficiency of health and social services, by building a robust picture of the local context, and applying our extensive knowledge of both policy and analysis to: define quality; identify the indicators by which to measure performance; and plan the actions necessary to achieve success. We work with organisations to manage and minimise risk while focusing on improvements that can be made in relation to service outcomes, finances and capacity.

Examples

Lambeth and Southwark PCTs: Service Redesign [information to come]

East Sussex — Sustainable Performance [information to come]

For more information about our work with health and social care organisations, please contact Paul Tarplett, Director, t: 020 7239 7800 email Paul