Our understanding

The NHS has gone through a phenomenal period of growth since 2000 with nearly 7% real additional funding each year, which has led to significant benefits for its service users; waiting times have been reduced, services such as accident and emergency have transformed and survival rates among critically ill patients have increased. 

The 0.4 per cent increase in the overall NHS funding is soon going to be swallowed up by cost pressures such as incremental pay drift and the increase in VAT. So just to stand still, the Health sector has to find £20bn in savings, which equates to a 5% increase in productivity. NHS leaders, therefore, need to rise to the challenge of cutting costs whilst responding effectively to the continuous demand for healthcare services and maintaining optimum levels of service delivery. We believe that there is enormous scope to redesign services and reduce variations in performance so that efficiency savings can be realised and subsequently reinvested in patient care.

Alexander is a founding partner to the BIRCH Foundation, an initiative for collaboration between the University of Warwick and expert process-improvement consultants, clinicians and academics. We mentor change within healthcare organisations to ensure excellent patient care through flexible, responsive and efficient services. Our aim is to improve healthcare in the NHS for the benefit of patients by improving services through:

• Supporting Trusts during improvement of productivity & performance & cost reduction
• Raising awareness of opportunities for improvement & knowledge transfer
• Developing in-house Trust expertise to deliver ongoing improvement
• Improving metrics for health outcomes
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