Business Improvement Programme – Jersey Hospice Care

The crux of Jersey Hospice Care mission statement is as pertinent today as it ever was; “to enable patients to live the remainder of their lives to the full, to remain at home if they wish and to die with dignity where they choose”. The Hospice is a registered charity and makes no charge to patients. The current annual cost to run the charitable services is in excess of £5.9 million (£16,200 per day). Funding for care services is thanks to the generosity of islanders with the Hospice fundraising shops being a vital source of revenue for Jersey Hospice Care.

Julie Jubb, Manager of the St Ouen shop, and Anne-Marie Le Bloas, Manager of the St Helier shop, participated in the Business Improvement Programme to evaluate activities from donations to sales across the Hospice shops. As they got into the detail of the process they concentrated data collection on the largest shop at the St Ouen site.

They created a very visual value stream map in the management office demonstrating the flow of work through the site with photographs in sequence of activities. This gave a sense of order that led to discussions with staff members and volunteers enabling data, bottlenecks, process issues and ideas to be shown in an open and visual forum.

All information was recorded in to action logs and the team produced an “Ishikawa Cause and Effect Diagram” highlighting all the elements that impacted on the Shop’s inability to achieve optimum performance. Data on donated item volumes was measured during the project along with profiling of resource numbers on a day to day basis. This was all new information which had not really been appreciated before.

The team were able to quickly act upon specific issues within their control which included improving the workplace organisation (5S) of the electrical goods testing area and re-designing the process flow for how goods enter the shop at the front end. This created better flow and increased the amount of Value add processing, a much needed outcome given restraints on resources.

They took their analysis to head office and presented their plans along with the framework of improvements that needed senior management attention. This was a great success allowing the management team to have a full understanding of how processes actually work on a day to day basis – a real eye opener. The project has changed the perception of introducing front end barcoding as a requirement to a focus on new tills that can speed up processing at the back end providing a “pull system” to assist with resource management. This will eliminate manual recording within the office freeing up management time.

The team are all very pleased with how the programme has bonded them together and given them the confidence to challenge management decision making through structured analysis that has benefited the whole business. This has allowed change to happen with agreement and buy in from all. Investment in new tills will be recovered with efficiency savings within a year and the project has enabled a cost avoidance on barcoding to a value of £50k per annum. This will ensure that the Shops continue to optimise revenues to support the excellent and invaluable care that the Hospice provides to the people of Jersey.  The team will continue to use Lean tools and techniques throughout all areas of the Hospice.

The aim of the business improvement programme is to support established organisations to become more efficient and to deliver sustainable growth that will create market competitiveness and a solid operational platform for the future. It is managed by Jersey Business, funded by the Government of Jersey and delivered by Accelerate.