Customer Consulting launches new healthcare division: Transforming Patient Pathways

Brian Jopling, who heads the TPP division, believes that CCL’s extensive experience in customer management and communication centres is proving to be of great value, both to the NHS and private providers – and will become increasingly relevant as the NHS reduces budgets from 2011.

He explained: "CCL has over 25 years experience in helping major organisations develop the infrastructure, skills and culture needed to improve the quality and efficiency of their customer management. TPP has been set up to bring this experience to bear on the current challenges and opportunities facing healthcare and how it manages patients through the care system – in order to increase patient and staff satisfaction and achieve gains in efficiency and effectiveness.

"While many NHS Trusts have defined their strategy for more effective, integrated services, the challenge is how to deliver a robust and sustainable solution," he continued. "TPP will help NHS organisations to meet core health economy objectives while enabling the service to increase its ability to provide patients with the right treatment at the right place and at the right time."

Where services across the urgent care system are not well coordinated or integrated, patient and professional pathways can become unclear, inconsistent and fragmented. This results in sub-optimal service delivery, poor patient experience and significant – and avoidable –waste, such as unnecessary acute hospital admissions, re-admissions and excess bed days.

Simon Rustom, CCL’s managing director, added: "Last year, the University of Southampton carried out some research for the Department of Health which revealed that, while some innovative ways of working are in place, their impact remains limited or localised. The report concluded that a more ‘joined up approach across stakeholders is needed to achieve sustainable change’.

"With this in mind, TPP is already carrying out work within the NHS to improve its ability to manage and coordinate both patients and professionals in order to provide more ‘joined up’, integrated services," he said.

"This requires single, standardised processes and greater co-operation and alignment between the different service areas of primary, community and secondary care. It also involves a cultural and mindset challenge requiring new skills and behaviours and a reduction in ‘silo working’."

The benefits of instituting TPP’s approach include:
• Avoiding unnecessary admissions to hospitals
• Providing simpler, easier access to services
• Providing care closer to the patient’s home
• More effective and efficient use of resources
• Reduced duplication of effort and resources
• Improved governance and financial control, leading to saving money for both the NHS and the taxpayer

According to Mohammed Khan, TPP’s business development consultant: "In addition to improving patient care, our approach has the benefit of improving staff efficiency and, therefore, job satisfaction because staff get more chances to ‘make a difference’ for good."

For further details of CCL’s Transforming Patient Pathways services and approach to greater healthcare efficiency, contact Mohammed Khan at mohammed.khan@customerconsulting.com

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About CCL’s Transforming Patient Pathways (TPP)

Transforming Patient Pathways (TPP) is a division of Customer Consulting Ltd (CCL).

It was established to help healthcare services meet core health economy objectives through delivering more effective and efficient patient care pathways, including:

• Developing integrated patient pathways for new models of care, such as managing long term conditions across the urgent care system
• Using communications centres, of ‘hubs’, to offer a single point of access and improve patient and professional route finding
• Preparing for and responding to the National Three Digit Number initiative
• Improving existing services that coordinate patient pathways, such as the out-of-hours service
• Improving other patient management processes that require cross-agency integration, such as patient discharge

TPP’s activities relate to:

• Patient relationship management
• Communication centres – and communication centre improvement
• Change management

These activities are driven by the core health economy objectives in the areas of patient experience, governance, quality and finance.

About Customer Consulting Limited

Customer Consulting Ltd (CCL) is a specialist customer and change management company. It helps organisations to optimise their return on investment in customer management - especially contact centres and customer-orientated information and technology.

Its vision is to demonstrate that a best practice approach to customer management delivers sustainable business growth. CCL aims to deliver a combination of insight, intellect, wisdom and pragmatism - combined with a real understanding of people - to achieve commercial results that are beyond the norm. Using a joint project team approach, CCL offers advice and support to help companies develop and implement customer strategies that produce results.

With its 100 consultants averaging 20 years experience, CCL helps business leaders and their teams – including those at Aviva, BUPA, South West Trains and Orange – to activate their internal resources and ensure measurable success.

Further information from:

Kathy Duxbury, Customer Consulting, 00 44 (0) 1908 441012/ 00 44 (0) 7976 405779; kathy.duxbury@customerconsulting.com

Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, 00 44 (0)1727 860405; bob.little@boblittlepr.com