Our team effectively identifies the root causes of problems in systems and processes, developing solutions which recognise the importance of human dimensions of change. We believe the right conditions for change need to be created by senior leaders to engage, empower, develop and support the entire workforce to realise their potential.
We recognise both the challenges of improvement and the personal investment individuals make to improve patient experience and outcomes, integrating emotional health and wellbeing into our improvement practice.
The NECS Way
The NECS Way supports our customers to build an enduring culture of continuous improvement to achieve healthcare excellence. We offer a bespoke and flexible approach to meet your specific needs and unique context; our philosophy is ‘do with’, not ‘do to’, so that we work as a coaching partner until you reach a point of independence in your improvement journey.
Developed by experts in the field of improvement, The NECS Way is based on contemporary evidence, including our own published research and our vast cross-industry experience as improvement coaches. We have supported NHS organisations, private healthcare, the Ministry of Defence, education, local government, charities and many other service industries. We recognise both the challenges of improvement and the personal investment individuals make to improve patient experience and outcomes, integrating emotional health and the psychology of change into our improvement practice.
Our offer
| Support option | Purpose |
| Full large-scale top-down Lean Transformation | To deliver strategic, tactical and operational improvements |
| Visioning and Strategy Deployment (1-5 years deployment) | To reset organisational strategy supported by policy deployment |
| Value Stream Analysis (VSA) | To identify value and benefit, normally in pathways but also used with supply chain and other service areas |
| Rapid Improvement Events | To delivery VSA identified benefits quickly |
| Daily Improvement | To support quick wins through a bottom-up approach e.g., model areas, team huddles, leadership boards |
| Lean Process Planning (2P) | To support implementation of new equipment and processes |
| Demand Analysis and Systems Thinking | To remove failure demand and system conditions driving the ‘wrong’ behaviours |
| Lean Project Planning | To ensure co-ordination across project plans using Lean tools |
| NHS IMPACT facilitated support | To align improvement work with meeting the requirements, and providing evidence for, NHS IMPACT |
| Transformation Governance | To ensure appropriate reporting, monitoring and accountability through the use of Mission Control |
| Data Analysis support | To develop metrics to support data-driven improvement |
| Benefit Tracking | To identify, confirm and evaluate actual benefit post-delivery |
| Leadership coaching | To develop skills and behaviours required for a culture of continuous improvement |
| Managing Change | To effectively manage the human dimensions of change |
| Action Learning | To enable and empower people to learn with and from each other to solve problems |
| Lean Training (certified by the Lean Competency System, Cardiff University. | To support all NECS Way options, but also can be used in isolation as a training system |
| General Facilitation | To support problem solving |
Integrated throughout this system is development of leadership skills and behaviours to support senior leaders to create the culture and conditions for improvement, and to support staff to lead change and work effectively with others.
Our training system is accredited by the globally recognised Lean Competency System, an industry standard Lean Qualification developed at Cardiff University. It can be delivered in isolation at any level (awareness training through to advanced skills and strategic improvement), or combination of levels, to suit your specific needs. We adopt a ‘train the trainer’ approach to enable you to develop your own internal improvement training capability.
The benefits
- Support from a team with a proven track record of delivering tangible benefits, improving flow and reducing waste using Lean methodology.
- A focus on human dimensions to support staff through change.
- A ‘golden thread’ alignment of improvement efforts with your priorities, organisational goals, and metrics with co-ordination of improvement work across the organisation/system.
- Development of staff improvement capability as well as leadership skills and behaviours for improvement.
- Development of a culture of continuous improvement.
Contact the team
Solving problems in emergency care and neurodiagnostic services
As part of our ‘general facilitation’ offer, we designed and ran a series of problem-solving workshops for North-East and North Cumbria ICB to understand the challenges the region was facing with regards to emergency care, ambulance handover and neurodiagnostic services.
Improving the Healthcare Travel Cost Scheme: a Lean Review
The NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme (HTCS) provides support for eligible individuals with transport costs when they are referred to hospital or other NHS premises for specialist NHS treatment or diagnostic tests. A review by NHS England in 2021 highlighted there were variable and complex processes for patients claiming travel expenses with delays in reimbursement of up to 90 days.