Project Report

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

When Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust formed their integrated care organisation in October 2015, they became the first NHS organisation in England to join up hospital and community care with social care and are proud pioneers in integrating health and social care nationally. The Trust provides health and social care services within Torbay Hospital (providing acute hospital services) as well as five community hospitals, stretching from Dawlish to Brixham. With a resident population of approximately 286,000 people, the Trust serves over 78,000 people in the A&E department annually plus about 100,000 visitors at any one time during the summer holiday season. The Trust employs over 6,500 staff, including doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, consultants, and physiotherapists, as well as highly skilled managers, administrators, and technical experts.

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Background

The Trust approached LitmusFM with requests to support the estate’s department with their Hard and Soft Facilities Management across a full range of services including, Catering (patients and visitors), Cleaning, andMechanical & Electric Engineering.

Brief

Most of the services within the Trust were in-house solutions. Our brief was to ensure the Trust was both operationally and financially in line with similar NHS clients across the Hard and Soft services. The Trust also required a report on if the service specifications were fit-for-purpose and represented the needs of the Trust, and most importantly, the patients.

Approach

Our team forensically examine the service processes and recommended solutions that would deliver Client operations more effectively. We embed our consultants within the clients’ sites, working with their key stakeholders and the in-house and incumbent service providers to identify opportunities for improving FM service delivery. We then manage and drove the implementation of improvements via agreed work streams.

Our initial reviews were based on meeting the requirements of the latestNHS National Standards and then using our own LitmusFM comprehensive benchmark database and examples from other NHS Trusts who have been/are going through similar changes in service delivery.

This enables us to help determine:

  • What the optimum total cost requirement is compared to the current cost deployed.
  • How the existing Services provisions might be best re-engineered to improve the consistency of the standards across the Trust.
  • How the Services operational model could be further optimised.

The review also provided an objective assessment of current Service performance and concluded with tactical and strategic recommendations for improvement to the services at the time.

Outcomes

Following the reports on each service solution, the Trust received a clearly defined roadmap for change, where this was necessary. Where the services solutions met the required standards, in line with benchmarks and operational efficiencies, the Trust received a comprehensive review, analysis, and testing, performed by an objective third party to confirm and verify that the service requirements were correctly defined and validated.

Services Reviewed

Hard and Soft FM Services Tender

Supporting the Trust on the tendering of a new FM services contract including the development of detailed service specifications and pricing schedules and assisting in the evaluation of submitted tenders, culminating in the contract award.

SLA Development

Scope of works included the development of a detailed Service LevelAgreement for FM services delivered by the Trust to the Mental Health facilities.

Torbay Hospital – Salus Ward

Development of an in-house Hard FM cost model for the Trust.

Torbay Hospital – Labour Loading

Preparation of a labour-loading model for the delivery of Hard FM services and Planned Maintenance across the hospital based on an in-house delivery model.

Cleaning Services Review

Carry out a full Cleaning services review across the Trust to understand the existing structure and delivery model, capturing observations, and providing a summary report with recommendations.

Catering Services Review

Carry out a full Catering services review across the Trust to understand the existing structure and delivery model, capturing observations, and providing a summary report with recommendations.

Client Contact

Karen Robertson, Associate Director Facilities Operations & ServiceDevelopment, Estates and Facilities Management Division, Torbay andSouth Devon NHS Foundation Trust.

karen.robertson@nhs.net