Business Support Services

The Business Support Services Unit is a key support service for the trust. We help staff to plan and deliver efficient, effective services that meet the needs of patients.

Business planning

We provide business planning and marketing support to the clinical services. This involves:

• Shaping the strategic direction of services.
• Working in partnership with our commissioners to ensure our services meet the needs of the local population.
• Planning outpatient and inpatient activity to ensure our capacity matches the demand for services.
• Collection and monitoring of business intelligence information to inform marketing decisions.
• GP engagement – includes educational events and bi-monthly newsletter.

Service improvement

We support staff within the trust to develop and improve the services they provide for patients. This involves:

• Helping staff to develop skills and knowledge to improve their services.
• Enabling staff to drive through changes and improvements.
• Practical training
• Leading Service Improvement course
• Workshops and bespoke sessions
• Working with teams to understand issues and identify and implement solutions. 
• Supporting teams to measure and monitor their improvements.

Rapid improvement events

The BPSI team facilitates large scale service improvement events combining service improvement and lean tools and techniques to generate ideas and solutions. Lean is all about eliminating waste and ensuring that everything we do adds value to our patients’ experience. The rapid improvement events support staff to identify different ways of working which free up time and resources to devote to direct patient care.

Recent rapid improvement events we have delivered:

• Stroke services – this event led to improvements in the stroke patient pathway. An interactive database was developed by to log and report on vital patient safety information. We were ‘highly commended’ in the National Patient Safety Awards 2010 for this innovation.
• Nutrition – this event raised the profile of ensuring patients get the best possible nutrition during their hospital stay.
• Nursing documentation – this event led to the development of improved, standardised documentation across the trust.

Future events

• Older people’s services
• Ward 10 - Elderly care
• Ward 11 - Stroke unit
• Avoiding re-admissions to hospital

More information