The NHS Trust has announced the efficiency strategy in a period when the NHS will have to make savings of £20billion over the next four years, despite the continuous growth in demand for healthcare.

The efficiency project, delivered in partnership with Healthcare improvement specialist Newton, has already delivered efficiency gains of £2m across the Trust's outpatients clinics and theatres in the past year alone.

The RWHT - a major acute general hospital providing a comprehensive range of services to people in Wolverhampton, the wider Black Country, South Staffordshire, North Worcestershire and Shropshire – undertook the project as part of its objective of becoming a Foundation Trust.

Newton initially conducted a forensic audit of the Trust's operational performance, which provided the information needed to identify, quantify, value and prioritise the biggest problem areas in the Trust's performance. Areas examined included outpatient clinics, procurement and supply chain, coding, staffing, diagnostics, length of stay, bed use and A&E.

A dedicated delivery team, comprising Newton and RWHT staff, was then established to deliver the efficiency gains throughout the three year project, working in partnership to deliver solutions that will optimise the Trust's operational performance.

As part of the efficiency project, a training and development programme for RWHT staff has been put in place to ensure the improvements are sustainable. However, not only will RWHT be able to sustain the efficiency gains, but they will also have their own internal team that can essentially do what Newton were brought in to deliver.

Andrew Hawes, Director of Newton, said: "The key to sustainability is ensuring that the improvements made by the Trust-wide improvement plan – from creating visibility of information and improving reporting to streamlining procurement – can continue after the project is complete. This makes staff training crucial in sustaining the benefits for the long term future of the Trust.

"Through close partnership working with hospital staff across all levels, we are able to adapt the existing systems and processes to make improvements which have tangible results, and ensure the necessary skills and knowledge are embedded within the Trust through its staff to continue delivering these benefits."

RWHT chief executive, David Loughton CBE, said the project has been driven from the Trust's core objective of improving over all patient care.

He added: "Our over-riding vision has been to transform the operational efficiency of the hospital and be a patient-led NHS Hospital.

"We are already realising significant savings from our partnership with Newton's expertise, and fulfilling our strategic objective of being ranked amongst the best performing Trusts in the country.

"I am positive that this close partnership will not only maximise our resources by applying sustainable solutions, but also bring the benefits back into the Trust through training and development and fundamentally improve the our culture and quality of our patient care."