Re-engineering operating theatres: the perspective assessed

Refers to the widely experienced and appreciated difficulties in scheduling hospital operating theatres to make effective use of resources, and to avoid delays and overruns that can adversely affect patient care and staff morale. Reports the findings and recommendations of a project based in the Surgical Directorate of Leicester General Hospital NHS Trust which sought to address these problems from a business process re-engineering perspective. Covering the whole patient trail, from referral to discharge describes the project's progress through four phases concerning process mapping, the collection of staff opinions and ideas through a combination of interviews and surveys, collection of data on patient flows and procedure times, and a final "handover" phase in which broad recommendations were passed back to the Surgical Directorate for implementation with staff involvement. Details the recommendations which include a shift to cross-functional teamworking in a number of areas, along with the development of a revised theatres policy and a strengthened theatres co-ordination function. In view of recent substantial and harsh criticisms of the re-engineering perspective, seeks to offer a balanced assessment of the perspective applied to a health care setting, exploring both the problems and benefits.