Echocardiography Insourcing Project

The challenge

In March 2021 the Trust approached Agile to ask for assistance with a large backlog of patients waiting for an Echo scan - due to lock-down and suspension of outpatient appointments. The Trust had previously outsourced the service, but this was no longer available as an option and not the Trust’s preferred choice in any event.

Echocardiography staff are extremely hard to recruit, and the Trust’s own team were in high demand to cover additional work there. The Trust’s preferred option was for an insourcing service so they could maintain their own policies and procedures, use their systems, booking and reception service. They wished to use spare room capacity over the weekend on a Saturday and Sunday.

The Trust decided to roll out the service across both hospital sites - Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) and King’s Denmark Hill Hospital (KDH). This ensured that patients would be seen in their local hospital and their waiting time would be cut considerably. 

The solution

Implementation took 3 weeks with a team of 55 fully compliant candidates sourced for the project. The Agile Insourcing Manager filled the rota and managed the team of staff from registration onwards, issuing of ID badges, arranging training and induction, through to payroll. The Trust booked in the patients and managed reception.

The project provides BSE accredited and experienced Echocardiography staff to scan and report 10 patients per day. We are part way through the contract but, to date, the Echo team has seen 2,862 patients.

The Agile team are on-call 7 days a week to deal with any issues and work closely with the Trust teams.

The results

The original contract involved covering 8 rooms per weekend at DH and 6 at PRUH. However, due a desire to cut the waiting list more quickly the PRUH asked Agile to double the rooms each weekend. We have also managed a change of reporting system and booking system during the term of the contract.

Agile has weekly calls with the Trust and monthly review meetings to monitor KPIs and ensure the service is operating to the exact specification of the Trust to ensure the best service to the patients.
Throughout the contract there have been many cancellations but Agile have always managed to cover the gaps with other candidates avoiding the need to cancel patients.
The Trust have been very happy with the team and the service.

Testimonial

Working with the Agile team has been fantastic.

The operational teams are very knowledgeable and always approachable. We have smooth running of our weekend sessions.
Rotas are sent weeks in advance, each team member know their roles, and they are friendly and experienced. Friends and family survey completed by the trust is very positive.
A special thanks to Ruth to manage this project so efficiently from start to end each stage was managed in professional manner and helped our organised reaching diagnostic compliance.

Ali Ahmed - Senior Service Manager, Cardiology & Respiratory - PRUH & South sites