EBME Forums Forums Management Modernisation (Formerly, Controls Assurance) Electricians and EBME convergence

Perhaps one way to waste a little less would be not to hire consultants to spew out the latest BS!

There you are Mark, I've just saved you* £ 20,000, right there!

Nanny says:- "Stop all this old nonsense at once! We have new nonsense now!"

* Or do I mean the tax-payer?

Here's a link to an earlier thread.

Mark
Most Biomed departments in the NHS always have far more to do, than there is time available. It is no good just saying an infusion pump takes an hour, so thats 37 in a week. You also have to consider all the interuptions (cos we are always helpful).
If your department has been running properly, it should always be looking for better ways to do things without affecting the quality of the service.
As Bill has said, are the electricians going to be paid more for doing the same job? Where are they going to get their skills from? Besides which, don't they have their own jobs to do.
Nothing to do with Lean my friend. Stick to horses for courses.

Our division, Facilities, HAS to make a considerable amount of cash efficiencies within the next couple of years. To this end, all departments within Facilities must contribute towards this goal.

Does this mean that I start to clean the workshop myself - who knows.

If I do this, it has the potential to lose a whole-time- equivalent(WTE) cleaner's post. That's a saving, but not a very palitable one.

ALL options are being explored.

Horses for courses, but the going's getting tough.

Cheers
Mark

I don't think that cutting back on cleaners is a good idea, Mark. We are talking about a hospital, after all. And I doubt that the lady concerned is on what we might call "big bucks" anyway. Perhaps you need to glance around for another "big hitter"! Does any other post come to mind?

What more can I suggest ... except perhaps sacrificing the Manager's post? Could you still ... er, manage?

Surely all decisions could still be made, but in the time-honoured biomed fashion ... that is, a show of hands following discussion amongst the lads in the tea room ... and anything a bit more contentious or demanding could always be adjudicated right here, on the forum!

How much is that I'll saved you now? I hope you're keeping a tally, Mate!

We all been directed to make savings, but while the numbers of infusion pumps, monitors etc are ever increasing, the only possible way would be not service them. Suggest that to management, provided of course they sign to take the responsibility if something goes wrong - they'll jump a mile!

As we know, you can only cut so much, before you get down to the bone. All that is obvious, surely. Just look around at the wider scenario throughout the UK (eg, the decimation of industry, ditto the TA, Armed Forces being asked to make selfless sacrifices every day - for what? ... and all the rest); there comes a point where too much has been pared away, and the whole thing becomes non-viable.

The NHS is a bottomless hole in which to chuck money. But, if the Public continue to aspire to a "free at the point of care" health service, then that's what it takes. That is, it is not actually free at all. Just that the cost is, shall we say, a burden shared (in theory at least) by all.

The kit will always be there. And, as has already been mentioned a couple of times, it seems set to increase in number, rather than the reverse. So if "they" want it properly supported, then the resources have to be in place, one way or another, to do that. It's up to "them" (the over-paid Big Shots) to decide if they want the kit properly maintained, or not. It's their call. As I keep saying, "Rocket Science it ain't"!

But see the current thread about "Risk-based PM". In my opinion, it is one of the few sensible, practical, ways of taking matters forward, as it were.

Mark,
We can't realistically employ lean methods in our work. One of the main factors is "just in time". Think how long it takes to get spare parts from certain suppliers. Professional companies like RS and Farnell offer next day delivery but try and ask the big three medical companies for that and you'll be laughed at.
Another thing is the NHS beurocracy they'll stop you doing anything sensible. We had to make a 5% saving each year but are expanding our service. So the finance dept. took £350K of us and gave us back £250 to eapand the service, go figure?

If the NHS want to make savings they should look at the management and administration set-up first, but they would need to hire consultants to do this, better to trim the support services easier option.

I believe that we would all be better served if the NHS was afforded a few years of stability (that is, a respite from the heavy-handed interference by government, and the constant change that this triggers), and given time to consolidate, and properly manage, what it already has.

I also believe that the continued emphasis on cost is an out-dated paradigm, and we should be looking for new, better, and more meaningful ways of measuring the value of the Health Service. Cost per head would always need a mention, but how about more emphasis on the benefits ... and then a comparison with other countries? "Positive spin", if you like.

Live births per 1,000 (or however these things are best measured). Child mortality. Length of average in-patient stay (ie, the shorter the better). A metric for infection containment (or elimination). Number of nurses per head of catchment population. Number of A&E cases per head. Successful outcomes per number of surgical procedures. And stuff like that.

OK, let's get radical. How about number of people per annum turned away from tobacco and alcohol addiction? That way, maybe we could fund a doubling of the number of biomeds! That's it ... pipe-dream over!

And ... back in our own realm ... percentage of PM completed, accumulated equipment downtime (or, to continue in a positive frame of mind ... total uptime*), average response time, average time to repair, and stuff like that. Then get all that published on-line, for (yet another) "league table"! How does that sound?

Although it's always nice to have "happy campers", I'm afraid that the continuation of the cosy set-up of the biomed department (that undoubtedly exists in some places) must be placed a little further down the list of priorities.

* This would be difficult to measure (unless you just assumed that everything not "down", was "up", as it were), and its measurement would itself be ... er, a waste of time! When you thing about it, it's not simply the reciprocal of downtime! It would also (hopefully) be a very high figure when tabled as a percentage. 99.9% or something like that, if every piece of kit was included.