NHS Direct Initiative - Case Study Example

Section A The case study focuses on the pilot run of NHS’s new initiative ‘NHS Direct’ which is nurse led helpline in England and Wales. The study has discussed NHS Direct of Wales, its equivalent NHS-24 of Scotland and NHS Direct for rest of England. The initiative was regarded as a national ‘brand’ that contributed to the development of NHS. It broadly encompassed setting up of call centres with trained nurses. The objective was to provide people with help and advice on health related problems and queries over the telephones and online. The phone and online arms of NHS Direct, together cater to around 500,000 calls/ visits per day! The paper would be analysing the environmental factors of NHS Direct of different regions. NHS Direct NHS Direct provides the healthcare services through phone and online services for 24x7. Nurses, having wide range of experience in diverse areas are recruited. 60% of them work on part time basis on this service and other part time is devoted elsewhere in NHS. It is equipped with state of the art technology and diagnostic software which prompts the advisors to ask specific questions to the callers. It then gives suggested diagnose and recommends actions to be followed. The major strength of the service is that it has experienced staff and works with sophisticated technology that helps to provide right medical advice. The increasing numbers of calls show that it has earned people’s trust. But the major weakness of the system was not to anticipate the popularity of the service and the inadequate number of staff was unable to handle the large traffic of queries. There was huge waiting period. Lack of competencies vis-à-vis ability to coordinate with other services resulted in lack of information with many health related issues Main threat to the service came from resource deficiencies like staff, technology backup and effective coordination with other agencies. But it availed the opportunity to exploit its expertise that was reflected in reduced pressure on the GPs and savings of nearly 45% of its running cost through reduced usage of other services. NHS Direct Wales In Wales, the service was managed by Swansea authority. The major strength was that it focused on the home care rather than gong to England for treatment. It also started service in the area of dentistry and coordinated with local voluntary organizations like Samaritan and Child-line which worked for suicide prevention and child abuse. The weakness in the Wales service was that it left out major area of healthcare imperatives. The threat from the single authority was significant because it gave unlimited power to Swansea which ignored the wider objectives and focused on its own agenda of healthcare priorities for Wales. At the same time, NHS Direct Wales utilized the opportunities to create awareness regarding important issues like child abuse and increasing suicide rate. It was able to integrate its service strategy with healthcare plans. NHS 24 of Scotland It worked under the new name of NHS 24 and worked with different health agencies to improve its service delivery. It was its major strength. The people could call different agencies for the healthcare queries. The weakness of the system was that there were too many agencies and it was difficult for callers to identify the right agency for their query. The government policies, especially related to GPs contract had become major treat to the success of NHS 24. The ‘call back’ system suffered because often the doctors were not available after their surgery. But NHS 24 used the opportunity to introduce dentistry and exploit the expertise of different agencies by opening more centres and ensuring that calls were answered within 30 seconds. Section A(2) The change management is a critical issue within the healthcare industry and within NHS. The implementation of NHS Direct brought into focus the factors that significantly impacted the performance outcome of services. In the fast changing environment of technology and globalization, change has become intrinsic part of workplace paradigm. The organizations need to implement necessary changes in the organization to not only survive but to improve performance. But it is equally true that people tend to resist any kind of change and organizations therefore, plan and implement changes in a manner that mitigates the resistance of the employees instilling confidence in them. The introduction of technology was one of the major changes that needed to be adopted into the work practice within NHS Direct and NHS. The technology bias in England and Wales was a major hurdle that needed to be overcome. The main reasons for change are often the lack of knowledge about it and apprehension of job security. The advancing technology and the advent of computers have greatly influenced the changing paradigms of the business strategies. The technology is intrinsic to NHS Direct for providing effective information to the people regarding healthcare imperatives. Hence, managerial leadership of NHS must ensure that workforce is able to understand the necessity of introducing technology within the work environment. Proper dissemination of information is essential to dispel any doubts about their ability to adapt successfully to the changes. Training in the usage of new technology promotes confidence building and helps to adopt the technology. NHS must ensure that employees understand the importance of technology and its role in the successful implementation of NHS Direct. The telephone and online customer care requires the advisors to be proficient in using not only the computers but they should also be able to use the diagnostic software so that they are able to correct information regarding the query and make appropriate suggestions to the caller. Hence the expertise of nurses would be greatly complemented by their competency in the new technology and would improve the delivery of service. UK has multicultural and multilingual society. Hence, diversity has become an important issue and vital factor of change management. The globalization has ushered in an era of pluralistic society that comprises people from different culture, race, colour and nationality, giving a new perspective to the business compulsions. Managing diversity has become a crucial issue with the organizations, especially NHS which needs to be addressed urgently if they want to maintain a high standard of service delivery. The NHS Direct would be constantly interacting with people from different background. The organizational initiative in promoting better understanding of cross cultural values would facilitate in communicating with the callers in a manner that they are better able to understand. One can therefore, conclude that managing change has become intrinsic part of organizational strategy. The management needs to create congenial atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence building that promotes effective communication and collective decision making so that changes are accepted willingly. Section B(1) B(1a) For a company to follow a strategic development plan, the various macro, micro and internal environment of the organization become critical elements of success. The macro environment elements are external factors that have significant impact on the business outcome. They are political, economic, socio-cultural and technology related factors. The political environment within which the businesses have to operate broadly comprise of the government regulations, laws and other imperatives which have direct consequences for people. Hence, the industry needs to be aware of the legal framework as well as the laws that directly impact its operation in the country. Economic factor is very important as the market is driven by the demand and supply that is mainly dependent on the buying capacity of the consumers. Goods that give more value at low cost become attractive for prospective buyers. Socio-cultural factors are highly relevant as the world is increasingly moving towards multi-cultural society with persons from diverse background. Hence, businesses must take cognizance of cross cultural understanding and meet the requirement of multi-cultural society. Technology has become intrinsic to the success of the businesses because it facilitates effective communication and has increased business opportunities across the globe. The micro economic factors like Porter’s five forces model of industry competition are highly relevant. The five forces analysis of business becomes critical factors of competitive advantage and can be described as: industry rivalry; bargaining power of suppliers; bargaining power of buyers; competition from substitute; and threat of new entry. The internal environmental factors like staff, wages, customers, technology used in office are vital elements that need to be analyzed and evaluated for their strength, weakness, threat and opportunities for improved performance. B(1b) Resource and Competencies The corporate strategy of any business model must emphasize the activities and approaches that facilitate in achieving its goals and objectives with efficiency and timeliness. Thus, the resource based strategy is primarily knowledge based and includes all tangible and non tangible assets, including human capital, that enable the firm to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and thereby gives it the necessary advantage over its rivals in the industry. It helps in strategic development as it creates value through its competencies and resources. B(1c) Competitive advantages The innovative approach that provides goods and services with differentiating elements gives the organizations competitive advantage. It is important for the firms to incorporate the changing requirements of the people through the development of new products and services that meet the changing demands of the masses. The diversification of businesses by forging alliances also helps in the strategic development of the business. The diversification helps them to acquire new skills and add value to their existing products. Thus, it provides them with wider platform of differentiated goods and services and helps them to increase customer base. B(1d) Style of management synergy The changing times have made the businesses more competitive thereby making it obligatory for them, as well as for the working force to become more flexible and swiftly adapt to the changing technologies and work environments. Thus, identifying factors and issues that would help meet the challenges with efficiency and unmatched proficiency, become essential tools of strategic development. The ability of the managerial leadership to test new approaches and promote sustainable business practices are the enabling factors for the organizations to expand and compete in the tough economic scenario of contemporary times. B(1e) Organizational culture Organizational culture can be broadly defined through shared vision and collective goals of the organization. The various aspects of the interactive elements of the organization, which may comprise of diverse ideologies and personal conflicts of the individuals, work together to produce a cohesive output representing the organization’s unique culture. The organizational culture that is ready to adopt the changing values of the times, greatly facilitates business in improving and improvising the performance outcome. It thus, ensures development of the organization through optimal performance of the motivated workforce. B(1f) Stakeholders’ expectations The stakeholders can broadly be described as persons, groups or community that have interest in the project or business. It also includes the people who could be significantly impacted by the business outcome and results. Shareholders are also important stakeholders who are highly affected by the success and failure of the business and project. The various stakeholders’ expectations are focused on the success of the project that results in increased profits because they also become beneficiaries directly or indirectly. Thus, stakeholders’ expectations become major imperatives of strategic development of the organizations which work towards increasing the revenues through expansion of business interests and improved work performance. B(2) The factors that influence the decision making of CEO are primarily focused on leadership initiatives that take into account the changing environment of business. The fast changing socio economic dynamics have created a fiercely competitive business environment and leaders need to evolve dynamic strategies to meet the challenges of the time. The different contextual factors vis-à-vis size, technology, environment, diversification and globalization are vital elements that have significant impact on the managerial decision making. CEO is the principal strategist with leadership traits who strives to create value based mission and vision of the company that evolve with changing times to incorporate the changing preferences of the people. Indeed, the motivating factor of managerial leadership that facilitates adaptability to changing equations, have another very important attribute of recognizing the wide scope of emerging opportunities. The empirical relationship of leaders and the emerging changes are critical for a given situation and therefore, good managerial leadership demands a better informed leader who is capable of taking initiative and at the same time, he is also able to inculcate confidence in his people to move forward. One can therefore conclude that strategic leadership need to evolve with the fast transforming needs of the emerging new business imperatives. One needs to accept the challenge of creating a cohesive and encouraging atmosphere and leaders, within and outside the organization, facilitate the acceptance of the changes in a smooth manner. Indeed, the compulsions of emerging globally competitive business environment is having an effective leadership that encourages innovative business strategies and creative practices to overcome the challenges of fast changing technologies and dynamics of economy. Reference Case study. Read More