Voting for the Lean Healthcare Academy People’s Choice Award has now closed and we are pleased to announce the winner is the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for their Lean Transformation project.

Mr Peter Herring Chief Executive of the COCH NHS Trust submitted the winning application to be considered for the Project of the Year which the organisation also went on to win. The People’s Choice Award was independently voted upon by everyone who took part in the process and is recognition of an outstanding achievement by the Transformation Programme team.

The Countess of Chester embarked on a journey that is transforming their culture, fundamentally changing working practices, ‘leaning’ pathways and processes, and developing leadership to motivate and inspire staff. This 'holistic' transformation programme focuses on cultural change - the new ‘Countess Way’ of doing things is radically different from the way they have traditionally worked.

Through strong programme management 'fit for purpose' work streams were created that uniquely redesigned organisational structures and working practices with the aim of creating a culture of continuous improvement and innovation at all levels. The Countess Way Programme embraces major pathway and process redesign, a strong quality and patient safety programme and ensuring better value for money is achieved for every pound spent.  

The award submission detailed the pathway redesign work which embraces 'lean' and clinical transformation tools & techniques to deliver reductions in patient length of stay, reduction in rework , improving patient & staff experience and fundamentally releasing time to care. Work started within both Emergency Respiratory and Elective Orthopaedic pathways and is now being rolled out across other clinical & non-clinical areas.

Click here to view the poster for the winning project.

The 2010 Lean Healthcare Academy awards were a great success and recognised the achievements NHS Trust from across the country have made in creating and sustaining service improvements through the application of Lean techniques.

To find out how we can help you with your service transformation please contact Kim Holden on 01934 885084.