NHS Portering Manager leaves NHS to help NHS

Mark Edwards worked as a porter and then as a porter supervisor for nearly 3 years at Hull Royal Infirmary (part of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, a large Acute Trust and one of the UK’s 27 Major Trauma Centres), working his way up to become porter manager where he spent an additional 5 years in the role. He was a member of the team at Hull which worked collaboratively with the team at Global View, as part of more than 100 Trust’s across the country who helped with feedback in the development of MyPorter, Global View’s porter task management software solution, which saw it’s first install within the hospital Mark worked in. Fast-forward 9 months and Mark has now taken the leap to leave behind the NHS for a role at Global View in a move which he sees as a case of “leaving the NHS to help the NHS”. Mark is leaving behind his beloved portering team within the NHS as he sees the opportunity at Global View as a route to be able to help the NHS in a bigger way, having seen first-hand how much benefit the MyPorter system can bring to a Trust, and he wants to use his knowledge and experiences with it to bring it to the attention of more hospitals across the country who he truly believes will see the benefits and reap the rewards from it, and overall help improve the NHS, the portering service as a whole and more importantly, patient care and experience. “It might seem odd to say that I feel I needed to leave the NHS to help the NHS, but effectively that is what I am doing. I want to teach other hospitals about how much of an impact the MyPorter system had at Hull and what it can do for their portering teams – it really did revolutionise the portering team there and brought the service into the 21st century. Before MyPorter, in certain areas of the hospital, jobs were written as magnetic notes and stuck to a board with no visibility of porter’s, number of tasks or records to show peaks in demand” said Mark Edwards. In the 9 months that Mark has been using MyPorter with his portering teams, Hull Royal Infirmary has expanded its acute bed space with the opening of an extension, seeing the addition of about 40-50 new beds. Before, they may have had to take on extra portering staff to ensure these new beds were catered for, but with the use of MyPorter allowing them to plan better, coupled with the improved efficiency they saw from using it, it meant they were able to cope with the staff already available to them. Mark added: “One of the things I like to say to people from other portering teams who visited us at Hull (to see what it is like to use MyPorter in a real life setting) is that increased capacity doesn’t always mean there is a need for increased staff, and that’s all thanks to the way MyPorter works – the data and insights it provided us with, enabled us to make the right decisions at the right time”. Mark knows from experience that doing a difficult job in difficult circumstances isn’t easy, and although the NHS are battling hard to maintain their successes, from the knowledge Mark has gained in his role as a porter manager, he knows Global View have created a tool that can help the NHS battle this pandemic, the aftermath and continue to support them well into the future. “What I liked about Global View as a porter manager is that it was obvious from the beginning that they want to help you and look to do this by building a long-term partnership with you to ensure your hospital’s portering teams are running as effectively as possible” said Mark. In addition to Hull and Sunderland Royal Hospital (who have recently agreed to roll the system out across their entire site, after initially starting solely within the Radiology Department), other hospitals such as Barnsley, Leighton and Walsall have also being reaping the benefits of such a partnership and now the MyPorter family has grown rapidly with the additions of 8 further hospitals who are live or due to go live over the next couple of months. Mark is now on this side of the fence, and he is looking forward to building on this further, as well as being able to tell those who are yet to find out about MyPorter all about his belief in its ability and what it can do for their Trust. To chat to Mark or another member of the MyPorter team at Global View, please email: mark.edwards@globalviewsystems.co.uk myporter@globalviewsystems.co.uk

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Latest version of ground-breaking MyPorter software is launched

GlobalView Systems has just released a new update to its unique MyPorter software management system, which gives additional insight and reporting capability for portering managers to increase efficiency and improve patient flow using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The KPI Settings Report Tool enables managers to establish and interrogate specific KPIs such as porter uptime and time taken to complete both booked and urgent tasks, as well as producing insightful reports within seconds. Measuring success is a vital component of delivering effective services, and the Tool gives Trusts a flexible and meaningful way to monitor progress. Traditionally, portering KPIs are based on activity time, e.g. patient moves being undertaken within 20 minutes. The KPI Tool allows other factors such as priority, location and response times to be quantified, enabling more detailed reporting and the ability to target adjustments to areas which most require performance improvement.

The Tool enables hospitals to monitor the portering KPIs most relevant to them, and produce tailored reports according to precise areas such as:

• Time between request and porter completing the task for urgent cases such as sepsis or dementia

• Time taken to allocate and accept tasks

• Average time taken from accept to completion on all tasks

• Response times to urgent requests

• Workforce utilisation rate e.g. 80% porter uptime

The response to booked appointments can also be measured, helping to reduce missed appointments, ensure maximum utilisation of vital equipment and make best use of clinical staff time, as well as giving them the confidence to work to capacity.

The KPI Settings Report Tool provides a real time colour-coded dashboard of performance against targets, making it easy to identify and address any areas of concern as they occur. The Tool also enables detailed reports to be easily and quickly produced in a few simple steps, tailored according to the needs of the individual Trust. This may be at a task, departmental or Trust level, inline with Care Quality Commission reporting or in response to national targets such as Emergency Department four hour wait times.

The Tool gives Trusts the ability to establish Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which measure performance and demonstrate meaningful improvements and benefits over time, such as fewer pauses, fewer cancelled tasks, fewer tasks commenced after start time and improved patient flow. Various factors can be interrelated, e.g. a KPI can be created to measure the time taken from requesting a Covid patient being moved from ICU to completion.

The new Tool can be used in conjunction with MyPorter’s existing reporting function, which enables managers to view trends over time to help predict peaks in demand and allocate resource accordingly, helping to manage capacity versus demand over the longer term.

MyPorter was developed following extensive consultation with portering teams in over 100 NHS Trusts, and has been designed to meet the particular needs of the porters and managers. The KPI Reporting functionality was introduced in response to a request from Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH), and GlobalView worked closely with the facilities management team to create a solution that presented the data they needed in an insightful format. It has now been rolled out to all existing MyPorter customers throughout the UK.

The MyPorter task management system, gives real time visibility on porter location and activity, helping to streamline processes and improve patient flow with timely movements. The system is proactive, with notifications received prior to task start times. The system also records paused events, the reason, their duration and location, making it easy to identify and address delays and pinch points. A full audit trail can be accessed if needed, and any service queries easily resolved.

MyPorter has also improved the patient experience, ensuring they are in the right place, at the right time, and fewer appointments are missed or delayed. Tasks are distributed via text message to radio handsets or android devices, so this means no patient information can be overheard, enhancing patient dignity and reducing noise in the hospital environment.

Matt Wright, CEO at GlobalView Systems said: “We work in partnership with all of our customers to ensure their MyPorter systems are configured to their needs, and this new functionality has been developed in direct response to customer requirements to give them even more information to help them plan future service delivery. We have a continuous improvement approach, which means MyPorter will evolve over time, with enhancements and additional features to provide increased insight. The NHS has never been under greater pressure, and it’s vital that they have the tools available to help them ensure smooth patient flow and optimal use of valuable resources.”

GlobalView joins the GCloud12 Framework

Yesterday saw the launch of the UK Government’s Crown Commercial Service (CCS) latest digital marketplace: GCloud12. We are proud to announce that GlobalView have been accepted onto the framework, making the company much more accessible to new business and making it a much easier process for potential clients’ procurement teams moving forwards. GlobalView are listed on the CCS GCloud12 in Lot 2 – Cloud Software with their communication solutions software MyPorter, which is aimed specifically at helping portering teams within the NHS. MyPorter helps to improving efficiency amongst porters throughout their hospitals, and is done by allowing staff to easily allocate the right job to the right porter with important information of the patient to deliver a personal patient service and experience. The software was developed by porter managers for porter managers with discussions having taken place with over 100 different trusts during its build. GlobalView’s Business Development Manager for Healthcare Mark Smith said “We are delighted to be accepted onto this framework which now allows us to support our customers especially the procurement process with a structured and consistent approach to start exciting new partnerships”. More information about MyPorter can be found at: www.myporterlogistics.co.uk and the CCS GCloud12 digital marketplace framework is listed online at: https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM1557.12