Well Organised Working Environment: The Management of Equipment within Integrated Community Equipment Services
Service/team: Integrated Community Equipment Services (ICES).
Trust: Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Date: February 2011
Module: Well Organised Working Environment
Aim of the improvement
Management of equipment
Situation before improvement
ICES were one of the first wave teams to start Productive Community Services in October 2010.
The stationery store was part of the archive room which was situated within the main equipment store. Finding stationery was a journey of peril’s between ensuring you had the correct footwear to enter the main store (no peep toes or sandals) and then mountain climbing over archive or empty boxes to reach the racking containing the precious treasure (pens, paper, etc.). This is why we chose it as our WOWE project.
We collected measures to see how long it took to find the stationery you wanted and how often the store was used. While these measures were being collected a room within the main admin area was identified and cleared of clutter. The stationery was then relocated and a new inventory agreed. A guide of the racking within the room and shelf contents was put on the door.
Improvement achieved / lessons learnt
When ‘after’ measures were completed and compared to the time spent locating store before the changes. However, for us the time released for re investment is 5 hours
We are now looking at the orders placed for stationery to see if there has been a reduction in these. We have also developed some simple `golden rules` for the stationery room and from these rules a quick audit is now being undertaken.
We have been able to link the `time released` from WOWE with our measures displayed on our ‘Knowing How We are Doing’ board through the roll out the Remote Requisitioning project. Measures include the number of items ordered on-line, team activity in terms of percentages of orders and collection on-line.
Productive Community Services has given us a `virtual tool kit` of methods and processes that can be used in all areas of service improvement.
