West London Mental Health Trust
Using SORCE intranet technology West London Mental Health Trust (WLMHT) dramatically improved communication, information sharing and processes throughout their organisation. The SORCE Intranet also helped automate repetitive manual tasks throughout the organisation, saving time and money.
About West London Mental Health Trust
West London Mental Health Trust provides a full range of mental health services for children, adults and older people. They operate from the London Boroughs of Ealing, Hounslow, Hammersmith and Fulham as well as specialist and forensic mental health services, including high secure services at Broadmoor Hospital.
The trust was created in 2001 by the merger of Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham Mental Health Trust, and Broadmoor Hospital Authority. It was further enlarged by the absorption of the Hounslow Mental Health Services following the dissolution of the Hounslow and Spelthorne Mental Health and Community Trust in 2002.
In 2003, the remainder of the Hounslow services for adults and older people previously based at Ashford Hospital was also absorbed into the Trust. This amalgamation has given the Trust a large geographical spread, approximately 45 miles from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire with 32 sites and 4,000 employees.
Due to the geographical spread of the Trust, a significant number of its employees are based in the community and, in addition, the Trust relies on a committed group of volunteers who help with the day-to-day running of the Trust’s operations.
The Challenge
An organisation (like WLMHT) that is spread over so many sites, with a wide range of clinical and administrative staff, needs to be able to communicate accurately and in a timely manner with their entire workforce. After the merger of the four separate NHS Trusts the need for accurate communication increased.
The need for more accurate communication intensified after an organisation wide survey highlighted a requirement for better communication across the Trust.
WLMHT needed a solution that would help to build a common ethos and team spirit throughout the organisation bringing together its distributed workforce. The survey also highlighted other requirements throughout the organisation:
- The need for a single communicational tool – email was not effective
- A reduction in the ‘islands of data’ that had built up – no easy way of accessing them from the different areas of the organisation
- Automation of some manual processes occurring throughout the organisation
- A reduction of the paperwork that was being created within the Trust
As one of the key strategies to tackle these requirements WLMHT decided to implement an intranet into their organisation. In order to help facilitate this process they set up a project team under the sponsorship of a senior director and involved representatives from across the Trust’s operations.
WLMHT approached the need for a new intranet as a business requirement with a need to connect employees, volunteers and management on a common platform.
Objectives
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Selection Process
One of the challenges set for WLMHT’s Intranet project team at the outset of the project was to deliver value back to the Trust quickly. The project team identified several key areas in which their new intranet should achieve:
- Improve the communications within the organisation through the publication of news and bulletins
- Provide secure accessibility throughout the trusts sites
- Eliminate ‘islands of data’ by including a central document repository
- Minimise duplication and reduce costs
WLMHT set about exploring the possibilities available to them. As the speed of delivery was important the Trust opted for a product solution to help them achieve their requirements. With clear leadership the project team were able to produce a robust tendering document.
Suppliers were invited to submit a tender to demonstrate the suitability of their solution and were judged by the following criteria:
- Ease of use of the solution
- Speed of implementation
- Capital outlay
- Ongoing maintenance costs
- The ability to meet the requirements of the Trust
- Strength of recommendations from other clients
The project team then short-listed the strongest candidates and their technology was re-examined. Initially the requirements of the intranet were designed to deliver an internal website to the Trust. After talking to SORCE the project team quickly realised the potential of an intranet to dramatically help them improve processes within the organisation. The focus was now not on an internal website, that simply facilitated better communication, but on a system that could make the organisation as a whole more productive.
The Solution
After interviewing several other suppliers, WLMHT decided that the SORCE Intranet solution provided the best long term value for the Trust. Using SORCE’s knowledge and guidance the project team re-evaluated the organisation’s requirements, looking for ways in which both time and money could be saved through their intranet. Three key areas of improvement (in addition to the original communicational requirement) were identified, these were:
- Improvement of budget management and reporting
- The identification and reporting of risks throughout the Trusts operations
- Management and reporting of incidents to comply with the Health and Safety Executive and the National Patient Safety Agency
With the help of SORCE, the Trust’s project team were able to automate these internal processes developing or refining existing intranet applications.
The Result
As the intranet was successfully deployed throughout the Trust results were immediate. For the first time, the Trust now had an accurate, centralised, telephone directory which can be updated automatically.
As well as the ongoing improvement to communication within the Trust, by looking at the processes within the organisation the project team were able to achieve an instant financial return on investment. The budget management was one of the first sections to be adopted onto the intranet. This process replaced two members of staff compiling, printing and sending budget summary reports to the management board every month. The two members of staff now have those days for more productive work and the senior management has accurate financial data available via the intranet any time they want to review it.
The risk register has also quickly become an essential application for the Trust’s risk team, who are now taking ownership for the management and updating of the information held. Risks can be identified, assigned and displayed to provide management with a real-time snapshot on the Trust’s overall risk profile.
The Incident Reporting application improves the Trust’s overall ability to track and monitor incidents, helping to increase IT literacy throughout the organisation as many of the users of this application are community-based and not regular users of IT.
To see how the SORCE Intranet product can help enhance the productivity of your NHS hospital intranet, book a demonstration or visit one of our free test drive events in various locations across the UK.
Tags: Hospital Intranet, NHS Intranet