‘Highly commended’ was the plaudit for BT’s work with South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT) at the recent Health Service Journal (HSJ) Efficiency Awards 2011.
The inaugural awards, which took place on 14 September at the Park Lane Hilton in London, aim to promote organisations in health service ‘that demonstrate strategies and initiatives that have tangibly improved efficiency and cost savings, while maintaining the highest levels of patient care and staff morale’.
BT was the prime supplier behind SEPT’s flexible working initiative, WorkSmart, which helped achieve cost savings and drive efficiencies across the Trust’s numerous sites. WorkSmart gave the Trust the ability to work smarter whilst improving patient care and meeting Government efficiency targets.
The project drew on BT’s experience of implementing flexible working in its own organisation - some 70% of BT employees are equipped to work flexibly - and from its track record in deploying flexible working in both private- and public-sector organisations.
By the end of 2010, around 30% of the Trust’s administrative and community clinical employees were working flexibly in some way, allowing operations to be condensed sufficiently and two redundant sites to be closed.
Additionally in awards news, NHS Wakefield District has been shortlisted in the 2011 Nursing Times Awards in the Cardiac Nursing category for its BT-supported Telehealth pilot for chronic heart failure patients.
Congratulations go to all the BT Health people who supported both projects.