Managed service contracts continue to provide a valuable asset in the provision of modern pathology services. Two years after introducing Beckman Coulter’s Three60 inventory management to the laboratory in Chester, the department comfortably meets and often exceeds expected service levels. The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Trust decided to enter a partnership with laboratory automation expert Beckman Coulter when it developed one of the first combined blood science units in the NHS. Now, two years on, the impact is already recognised – workflow improvements, a consistently reduced turnaround time, increased revenue opportunities, and staff able to multitask in a less stressful environment.
The trust is one of the most efficiently run in the UK with a fine reputation for service delivery and quality. It is a 600-bed, single-site general hospital located on the outskirts of Chester catering annually for more than 425,000 patients from western Cheshire, Ellesmere Port, Neston and North Wales. For the 10th consecutive year, it has won the prestigious ’40 Top Hospitals Award’, one of only five UK trusts to achieve this success.
The investment in its laboratory services was part of a £6 million improvement programme to the hospital’s overall infrastructure and environment, ensuring that more patients could be treated. At the same time, the hospital instigated a process of continuous improvement in all departments, to minimise waste and delay while increasing productivity and efficiency savings.
Therefore, any automation solution for the laboratory had to support those objectives and have the capacity to offer sustained improvements over the long-term. It was also required to demonstrate how quality and productivity could be improved while maintaining stable staffing levels and costs. And finally, the right choice of an advanced automation system would enable the laboratory to generate additional revenue for the hospital by attracting work from GP outreach customers.
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