Like all other public services the financial challenge we face here at Liverpool Women’s is huge as we move forward. Over the past three years we have achieved cost savings of over £15 million at Liverpool Women’s. This is not easy when our priority is and must be to provide safe and sustainable services for our patients.
Next year we need to provide cost savings of a further £7 million. We have currently identified savings at £3 million. Finding the shortfall will not be easy. To do this safely we have to engage our frontline staff and clinicians as they are best placed to identify efficiencies and quality improvements. Every month leaders from across the organisation, including our senior doctors, meet to identify and scrutinise our cost reduction programmes.
We have also recently recruited a Transformation Change Lead who is directly engaging with clinicians and staff on projects that identify opportunities to work more efficiently and effectively. So far we have reviewed our processes with regards to Pathology and earlier this month we set aside a day to review our processes for more efficient in our operating theatres. Both events had high levels of engagement and enthusiasm from our staff. Thank you for your commitment to engage in these projects.
I have met with a number of our Consultant Anaesthetists over the past couple of weeks and I am delighted that we have seen a significant improvement in the number of patient cancellations for a non-clinical reasons. No patient has been cancelled for non-clinical reasons in the past 2 ½ weeks.
Across Cheshire and Merseyside I am the lead Chief Executive for Education, Training and Workforce and on Thursday I met with Sally Cheshire who is the Chair of Health Education England, North West. Sally is also on the Board of the HFEA and so I took the opportunity to show her around our Hewitt Fertility Centre and specifically the laboratories. Although I spend quite a bit of time in the laboratories I am always enthralled by the innovative technology in there and the commitment and passion of our staff who work so tirelessly to help our patients – it is truly amazing.