Patryk and Jason from NHS Supply Chain (NHS SC) in Maidstone identified the opportunity to start a Best Practice Forum to share potential opportunities with other NHS SC depots.
They looked into this as part of their Unipart Way delivery and began with the method for purchasing merchandise for reward and recognition, looking at the bulk buying opportunities across the 7 sites.
Unipart Way Manager, Lee, joined forces with them to work on the opportunity to expand this method across the network in a more formalised process.
Out three winners developed a Best Practice Charter which has resulted in a robust ideas and problem sharing forum that makes it easy to bring forward ideas and processes which all member depots then vote on and adopt as required. The forum actively seeks to develop a culture of promoting and spreading best practices, facilitating employees\colleagues to the sharing of our ideas both inside the NHS SC network as well as the wider Unipart Group.
Patryk, Jason and Lee went out of their way to consult with the other depots, not just confining their ideas to their site in Maidstone. They wanted to spread the word as much as possible and really drove this project to make it the best it could be.
The benefits of the Best Practice Forum are both financial and non-financial, from a reduction in the cost of poor quality due to Customer Care Teams supporting our Customer service teams, through to reductions in pick errors due to improved layouts and error reduction initiatives. It has led to improved methods of training our new staff to monitor their pick rates and quality as well as the improved development opportunities which have seen reductions in our cost of poor quality. One idea was the development of a standard 12 week induction plan for agency staff which has greatly assisted with their retention as they feel more valued and have a better understanding of the work.