Visit to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust

Our chief executive Daniel Elkeles visited Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, and was left impressed by what the trust has achieved in operational performance improvement: embodied by the Care Coordination Centre at its Maidstone Hospital site.

Daniel said: "Over the last seven years, emergency department activity has doubled but performance has improved, and it is now regularly in the top 10% of acute trusts. On cancer performance, the trust consistently delivers the 62-day standard, having been one of the worst performers, and it was the first organisation to eliminate 52-week waiters after Covid-19. The trust has also consistently delivered its financial plan."

It credits its success down to: 

🔵 Highly engaged clinical leaders who have taken concepts like Same Day Emergency Care and applied to them so many specialities, including trauma.

🔵 Focus on the basics of operational management including doing the heavy lifting required to actively manage waiting lists.

🔵 Focus on flow throughout the hospitals - the Care Coordination Centre not only provides the real time bed state in the trust and community beds, but it also helps manage staffing and improve quality with real time information on infection control, patient falls, mental health patients and patients who have been abusive towards staff.

🔵 Innovation - creating the ‘barn’ style operating theatres in the Kent and Medway Orthopaedic Centre, where three theatres operate in an open plan arrangement which maximises productivity.

🔵 Entrepreneurship - taking the opportunity to increase capacity by buying a local private hospital which has enabled the trust to increase capacity across its sites and treat more than 2,000 long waiting patients from across the across the Kent and Medway system.

"Thank you to Miles, Sally, Luke and Fiona for a great visit."