Kingston Hospital NHS Trust
Kingston Hospital NHS Trust’s Radiology department offers high quality CT services. Increasing demand meant that its existing suite needed an upgrade to cater for the growing number of referrals.
As is the case with many other Trusts, funding the essential work, managing the project and ensuring service continuity presented a huge challenge. A challenge which Asteral overcame, on time and to budget, with a bespoke solution that exceeded the requirements of the busy Radiology unit, delivering a modern, efficient department with improved patient and staff experience. The Trust also benefited from lower whole life costs than traditional capital purchase or lease options.
Increasing demand for scanning services
As is the case with many other Trusts, funding the essential work, managing the project and ensuring service continuity presented a huge challenge. A challenge which Asteral overcame, on time and to budget, with a bespoke solution that exceeded the requirements of the busy Radiology unit, delivering a modern, efficient department with improved patient and staff experience. The Trust also benefited from lower whole life costs than traditional capital purchase or lease options.
Kingston Hospital has a large Radiology department. In a typical day, the department would see more than 40 patients for various types of CT scan and levels were set to increase. Over the past decade, national demand for scans has increased by 10% year-on-year.
The previous technology, an 8-slice CT Scanner, provided a good service but the high level of use caused occasional downtime, which led to patient rescheduling. The consistently high volume of patients also meant that many scans were delayed, increasing the pressure on staff to maintain acceptable waiting times.
New approach to procurement
The Radiology team had a compelling business case, but the funds required to replace and upgrade the existing equipment plus remodel the building represented a significant investment, which called for a new approach.
Following a detailed evaluation, the Radiology team decided that an Asteral Managed Equipment Service (MES) contract would provide the flexibility to build a solution to meet their future needs and at lower cost than expected.
Managing the process
Asteral provided a solution that was closely modelled around the needs of Kingston’s CT team. This spanned financing, project management of the design, build and installation, equipment commissioning and operations - all delivered on time and to budget in just nine months.
Asteral’s vendor independent status allowed the team to find the best equipment available based on performance, reliability, flexibility and overall value. The two CT scanners selected featured state-of-the-art dose reduction technologies, greatly enhancing the value of the service to existing and potential referrers.
In place of a capital or lease purchase Asteral provided a fully funded finance arrangement that enabled the Hospital to make monthly payments over the course of the seven-year contract. The monthly payments cover the technology and maintenance plus the build, project management, training, response desk and other services.
The building work required had to not only make room for the two new scanners but also facilitate the projected increases in patient flows. Working in phases to allow the department to continue functioning, Asteral oversaw the creation of a new preparation room, patient changing areas, CT scanning rooms as well as offices, WCs and new plant rooms.
Ongoing service
The agreement with Asteral means that if there are any issues with the systems a single telephone call leads to swift resolution. As with all its MES contracts, Asteral stipulates that in any given month, an industry leading level of uptime is maintained.
Jim Weir, Head of Radiology at Kingston Hospital, has been impressed with the service. He said: “From the outset, Asteral’s team has impressed me with their expertise and professionalism. Since both scanners became operational in late January, Asteral has provided detailed monthly reports of the performance and availability of each scanner complete with key performance indicators, something I have never experienced from any other supplier.
“I am really proud of our new department. We provide an excellent quality of care due to new imaging techniques enabled by state-of-the-art technology. We also provide outpatients with a much-improved experience, thanks to a more efficient imaging facility and remodeled patient flows.
“This is our first experience of an MES but it has been a very good one and certainly something that we will look to repeat”.
The project has increased the capacity of Kingston’s Radiology department by more than 240%, allowing much greater flexibility in patient scheduling. This not only improves service levels to all patients and referrers but also, most importantly, enables the Hospital to increase urgent or in-patient access and supports the planned extension for a ‘walk-in’ direct access service.
