and the general belief was that the events were more
for the staff than the patients. “The general impression
is that the customer requirement has not been fully
defined. Therefore service improvements are being
undertaken without actually knowing what the customer
wants”
Within Ring there was agreement that the Trust had
respect for the customer and this respect was always at
the forefront of services being offered. Additionally it
was very positive to note that in some of the process
mapping exercises, service users, including patient
representatives and commissioners were involved. The
need to engage customers in the service improvement
was recognised.
However, within Ring there was some disagreement
across the Trust regarding the view of the patient as the
customer and whether the service improvement
activities had actually impacted upon the
patient/customer. Whereas all staff would agree that the
Trust tried to improve services to users, there was a
need to understand that this was not the same as the
customer experience. “Helping people get better is not
the same as making people feel good during the
process”.
4.2.3 Use of Data
Within Pottery the use of data was within the diagnostic
improvement activity in order to reduce waiting times.
Here the levels of demand and the relationship with
capacity/ resources were understood for a particular
purpose. Data particularly related to capacity and
demand within the RIE activity was not recognised.
Within Iron there was some evidence that staff were
starting to understand capacity and demand patterns
and use this understanding in their day to day working.
For example, in radiography staff had started to collect
demand and activity in order to create a baseline and,
in theatres they had adopted workforce planning on a
four week cycle for theatre and surgeon utilisation.
However, some concerns were raised about the
understanding of capacity and demand across Iron. It
was often felt there was not enough capacity, but
historical demand patterns or forecasts had not been
collected. Some interviewees suggested that the Trust
as a whole “does not really understand capacity and
demand, so often demand outstrips capacity. It is
possible to predict winter bed pressures but - all trying
to beat our own system.” There was little demand data
and even less capacity management. In one
department there was an idea of what the demand
patterns were and they had the data but it was not used
as information for decision making.
The level of understanding regarding demand and
capacity did vary across the Ring Trust. In one area,
they had used a workforce planning tool that enabled it
to identify that the number of referrals far exceeded
capacity. However, “still need to grasp issues around
capacity for referral, especially from the clinicians. This
needs to be addressed because better capacity
planning can protect staff from overwork and set
expectations on our workload.” In another area, it was
highlighted that the service had created a very predictable service which had reduced the variation
which had enabled additional capacity to be released.