Utopia

Attended a briefing session yesterday from the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Not only was the content fascinating, it was also interesting to listen to the language being used.

One initiative in development, Utopia, is actually an exercise in the management of the complete customer lifecycle (the Chief Exec calls it the 'patient experience', and acknowledge that they are at the 'foothills' of this approach).

They are developing a programme of 'Evidence Based Design' which will involve patients in the re-design of the way care is provided.

There is acute awareness of the challenges of the marketplace which has been created by the changes in funding and oversight of the health service.

It's a hugely complex organisation, with 700,000 patients / customers a year. And it's starting to talk about the patients' perspective, and how to incorporate that into service delivery. For an organisation whose processes were mostly built in the 1940s, it's impressive stuff. What are you doing at your company?

photo: Frank C Muller