Why match service delivery to patient demand?
When service delivery is not aligned to patient demand, mismatches create hotspots of waste, poor patient access and unnecessary cost through the often high-level use of temporary staff, outsourcing and/or additional staff payments e.g. WLIs and overtime.
Better planning and delivery of the service minimises these mismatches and provides the best patient care in the most cost-effective way.
Why is my service delivery and patient demand not aligned?
Service delivery will not spontaneously align itself to patient demand. If service planning is not effective then the calculation of required capacity will not be accurate.
Furthermore, if the language of service planning is different to the language of job planning it will be difficult to assess whether contractual Programme Activities (PAs) match the required PAs.
Additionally, it is often not easy to monitor whether delivered activities match the expected or contractual activities. This lack of transparency increases the risk that service delivery is not aligned with patient demand.
The Delivery-to-Demand (D2D) matching cycle
In an effective D2D cycle, service planning calculates the Required PAs based on an estimated patient demand and the required patientoutcomes. The job planning process thenagrees Contractual PAs which should match the Required PAs. Throughoutthe year, clinical activity data can then be captured and converted into Delivered PAs.
Timely comparison of Required PAs to Contracutal PAs to Delivered PAs can then be made to establish how well matched the delivery is to the demand. Implementing an effective D2D cycle will result in:
(1) The Required PAs being accurate and relevant to service demands;
(2) The successful conversion of Required PAs into Contractual PAs; and
(3) Actual activities being more closely matched to expected activities.Why use Align?
Staffing Science’s Align software suite helps NHS organisations identify mismatches between service demands, service plans and service output, helping service leads achieve effective and efficient service delivery, improve productivity and reduce unnecessary expenditure.
