Wednesday this week I ran our first full day Capacity and Demand training session for members. It truly is astonishing that Statistical Process Control ( SPC )one of the most useful tools available to healthcare both administratively and clinically is used as often as a chocolate fireguard. If you are in charge of a clinic, a service or a budget and you don't apply SPC to it then you are not fully understanding the service you run. It can help you plan forward, allocate resources, monitor trends, start escalation procedures long in advance of entering "panic mode". It can help you build a business case for more resources, apply innovative HR solutions to flexible manning, measure the impact of changes, highlight areas that don't perform and much, much more!!!

The trouble with it is to use and apply it effectively means an understanding of basic statistics is required and this puts people off. I don't get on particularly well with statistics, I tolerate them like an occasionally noisy neighbour. However, I know they are the swiss army knife of service improvement so I apply them where I can and it is often surprising what they throw up. No manufacturing business can survive in a competitive field unless they use SPC for capacity, demand and product quality and control.

Still busy busy tying up older projects who's action list should have been completed and setting up diagnostics for future projects. Analysing Breast and Lung Cancer 2 week wait pathways and clinics is fascinating.