Optimising Cost Improvement Programmes at a Service Level

Drive financial success and stability without inflicting a loss of clinical quality

The NHS is likely to suffer a funding shortfall of around £15 billion in the three years post 2010/11 and consequently cost improvement can now be seen as a continual process, not an episodic activity. More importantly, it is vital that cost improvement is approached in an intelligent, collaborative manner with full regard for the necessity to deliver clinical excellence. This course enables those with responsibility for cost improvement to gain maximum returns with minimal negative impacts, whilst ensuring that patient care and staff morale remain at the heart of the process.

• Gain a real perspective of what cost improvement is actually about
• Develop improved approaches to reducing cost
• Discover how to engage the whole team collaboratively and positively
• Approach cost improvement from all directions comprehensively
• Learn how to prioritise from a financial perspective
• Discover ways to reduce cost that don’t adversely affect service quality

• Understanding the financial shortfall in NHS funding
• The wider context – cost improvement as part of disaster aversion
• Beyond cutting corners – taking an intelligent approach
• Building a cost improvement ethos throughout the team
• Ensuring continuous attention to cost management
• The carrot of reinvestment – spending savings on better things
• Ensuring that the benefits of cost improvement are explicit to the team
• Establishing an effective cost improvement strategy
• Setting positive cost improvement goals
• Cost management reporting within the team
• Understanding your cost base – as a service and by patient
• Use of patient pathway analysis to elucidate cost savings
• Patient differentiation approaches to optimise resource consumption
• Overcoming team resistance to cost improvement
• Financial prioritisation – avoiding the sharp slice trap
• Understanding the principles of return on investment (ROI)
• Making clinical excellence the absolute baseline
• Improving clinical effectiveness through cost reduction
• Adopting a ‘lean’ approach to service delivery
• Using technology to improve leanness
• Service re-design as a cost saving strategy
• Evolving staffing structure as part of a wider strategic plan
• Use of training as an effective cost-saving strategy
• Innovation – improving performance whilst reducing cost
• The patient as innovator & prioritiser
• Leveraging funding for cost improvement innovations – sources & strategies
• Clinical coding – ensuring you get paid for what you do
• Case mix strategies to achieve cost improvement targets
• Economies of scale – creating cost efficiency by improving income
• Partnering & pooling for cost improvement
• Business planning in a lean environment
• Strategies for cost containment when it gets out of hand
• Managing offenders positively – gaining maximum engagement

The course is very practical, designed to provide participants with working methodologies and clear instructions to enable them to apply the new skills directly on return to service. The format consists of lectures, case studies, discussions, individual and group exercises. It's fast-paced and highly productive.

These are other courses that provide a good companion to this course.

• Core Skills in Finance & Financial Management for Clinical Leaders