Service line management
a business like approach
Private sector companies have been undertaking a service line approach for a considerable number of years. Any successful company has a detailed understanding of each area of the business and the relative contribution to profit that area makes. NHS trusts and particularly large acute trusts which arguably are more complex than any private company should follow this lead, since they can hide a multitude of inefficiencies in their accounts. Such inefficiencies can be responsible for deficits and cost improvement programmes may be targeted at the wrong areas, without the right kind of management information.
Public Sector Consultants has the expertise to guide your organisation through the transition into ‘service line management'. Our health team has significant experience in NHS finance at all levels, including reference costing and service line management. Our involvement can be flexible depending on client needs and it can range from diagnosis of current weaknesses to project managing an entire transition.
Services provided by Public Sector Consultants include:
- analysis of current reference cost systems with a report giving the strengths and weaknesses and containing recommendations for improvement
- a report analysing the current income and cost variance by service line, with reasons for differences in so far as this is available from current information systems
- advice as to how the various information flows within the trust can link together to help form an integrated service line reporting system
- training and mentoring of key trust staff
- project management of various aspects of the process, including systems improvement, management information design and cultural change
- interim managers to support your Trust through this process
The benefits of our services are:
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skill levels in the client trust are improved for the long term
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our consultants can work flexibly, in line with the peaks and troughs in workload as the process evolves
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improvements can be put in place much quicker than is often the case with internal solutions
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our experienced and skilled consultants minimise your learning curve
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consultants with varying skills and experience are available on a flexible basis, as and when they are needed by you
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the client has total control and flexibility as they determine the level of our involvement and retain full ownership
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the budget can be agreed so that there are no hidden costs
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the client has no long term commitment to employing dedicated staff on the payroll
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the client has the backup and support of Public Sector Consultants, which includes our multi-disciplinary experience and support models