Your Seminar Leaders:

Mike Gray, Service Manager for Laboratory Medicine, University Hospitals Division, NHS Lothian

Malcolm Holliday, Microbiology Manager, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and and Regional Head of Operations, Newcastle Health Protection Agency

• Working smart: focusing your efforts on measures that will save money and add value
• Utilising accurate data to prioritise changes and deliver overall value from your service
• Ensuring cost improvements do not detract from your service quality
• What opportunities are there to integrate services across primary and secondary care?
• Thinking outside your silo: can laboratory medicine deliver whole pathway savings?

• Devising strategies to actively gate-keep and control your workload: enforcing protocols to limit inappropriate testing and ensuring national guidelines are followed
• Questioning your service offering from the outside in: are all your services truly rational?
• Focusing in on specialised expensive tests: weighing up the pros and cons of delivery

• Reviewing your skill mix: re-profiling and re-banding to deliver the optimum skill mix
• Achieving more with lower grades: developing the role of the associate practitioners
• Cost implications of 24/7 working: increasing capacity vs. increasing headcount costs

• Utilising managed service contracts to achieve stable, long-term budgeting for your trust
• Pros and cons of choosing a managed service vs. other procurement options
• What are the long term cost benefits? VAT reclamation and transferring risk to the supplier

• Investing in lab automation: weighing up the costs vs. overall efficiency gains
• Re-deploying staff and retraining to capitalise on new opportunities from technology
• Achieving best value: can further savings be made by reviewing your suppliers?
• Taking a long term view on your asset needs: reviewing on going service requirements
• Cross network and group purchasing: using local links to deliver better prices

• What are the benefits and pitfalls of consolidation and networks within health boards?
• Is consolidation a short term saving or long term solution? Analysing the potential for sustainable savings
• Examining alternative service models and their viability: what should you consider?

Event Timing: Registration 9.30am - Start 10.00am - Close 4.30pm