Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Shares LEAN Ideas with London NHS Trust

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Manufacturing Limited has been sharing its experience of ‘Lean’ business processes from a manufacturing perspective with the Histopathology department of Whipps Cross University Hospital NHS Trust in Greater London.

A delegation of approximately 30 Whipps Cross staff chose to visit the Suffolk plant which designs and assembles a number of point-of-care instruments, including the recently launched RAPIDPoint 500^® Blood Gas analyzer. The visits demonstrated how Lean practices have been implemented by the company in a production environment to make continuous cost and time savings for the organization as a hole.

Pathology departments have been increasingly implementing Lean methodology to improve the quality, efficiency and safety of their services. The Whipps Histopathology Department, supported by NHS Improvement, is nationally a leader in implementing Lean with an outstanding improvement in service to patients. The visit to Siemens was designed for the department to gain experience of how Lean is applied in industry and what the benefits are in this setting.

Siemens Healthcare Solutions’ team of Lean Certified Consultants had previously implemented some process improvement events in other departments at Whipps Cross Hospital. The Histopathology Department at the hospital secured an internal prize for its previous work in Lean Improvement and decided to expand its knowledge of the Lean process outside the hospital setting. The team identified the Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Manufacturing site in Sudbury as a shining example of the methodology.

“Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Manufacturing Limited in Sudbury has long been an enthusiastic supporter of Lean and optimising business processes, and we are happy to share our knowledge of the philosophy from a manufacturing perspective with the team from Whipps Cross,” said Neil Eardley, Managing Director, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Manufacturing Limited in Sudbury.