Perform: Improving patient flow at Barts NHS Trust

Setting the scene

Patient Flow is a critical issue facing all hospitals. Emergency performance in the NHS has deteriorated to its lowest ever level since targets began in 2004. Bed occupancy and emergency department (ED) performance have become unsustainable and are burning time and energy which needs to be more focused on the direct clinical care and strategic priorities.

At Barts Trust, there have been more patients attending A&E at each of the sites than ever before and they had been running at up to 98% bed occupancy. That means patients in corridors, operations being cancelled and poor performance against the National A&E four-hour waiting target.

How we helped

Making a step change in patient flow required a large change programme which reached all major workforce groups influencing the patient pathway. Perform is a systemic training programme which uses behavioural change and active learning to increase individual and team effectiveness. Together with advanced analytical techniques to illustrate and predict performance, we helped optimise what clinicians, managers and their teams do, how they do it, and the tools they use. In essence, we helped the Trust to embed a “self-help” problem-solving culture across the acute hospital operations.