Supplies: material management

Supplies Website

Supply Chain Management

Introduction

Rapid, effective service improvement requires targeted expert support to spread best practice and stimulate change locally

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is the largest in the UK. It employs about 15,000 staff across eight sites and treats 125,000 inpatients, 65,000 day cases and 700,000 outpatients each year. It has 3,000 beds and an annual budget of £540 million.

With such a large customer base the Supplies department offers a purchasing and supply service based on the needs of a particular area. The Supply Chain Management team covers areas such as requsitioning, ordering, the physical flow of goods through the trust, transportation and materials management. The Requisition Processing Team adheres to a high level of quality standards to meet customer requirements. The team processes on up to 1100 requisitions every week with an average of 95% processed within 2 days.

Inventory Control Systems

The development of a 'paperless' system in our Catheter Labs is an example of how we segment our customer base. The award winning system is documented elsewhere on this site, but briefly the Cath Labs spend £25,000 each day on supplies; expenditure which requires efficient and effective management systems. A computerised inventory management system has been introduced which operates along similar lines to systems available in major supermarkets. As goods are used, they are passed in front of a bar code scanner and the stock is adjusted accordingly. From this point, the system is totally paperless and orders are scheduled and then encrypted and sent via the internet, directly to the many suppliers necessary to support the Catheter Labs.

Electronic Requsitioning

Electronic requisitioning has many benefits for the trust (and the end users in the wards and departments within the trust) by greatly improving the efficiency of the requisitioning process. This is achieved through

· RapidReq - an in-house developed system which allows the user to send orders directly to Supplies for authorization from their own workstation.

· Logistics Online - allows the user to order items from the RSC though the internet.

The Leeds Dental Hospital has recently followed a number of other departments within the Trust in going live with electronic purchasing, most noticeably CSSD, HSDU, Medical Physics, Operating Theatres, Radiology and Renal Services. All the depts which have converted to these systems have acknowledged the improvement in service and have been impressed with what the packages offer.

Materials Management

For other customers, such as Theatres and Wards we offer materials management, where Supplies staff manage stock on behalf of the clinical staff, freeing valuable nursing time. We have over 240 sites who currently use our materials management service and we receive almost 80% of all our stock consumables’ orders via this method. Materials management uses bar code technology to maintain stock levels and to re-order stock using hand held scanners. A best practice guide is available and for more information about the advantages of materials management click here.

Materials Management reduces time and costs:

the direct links between the data capture system and the supplier's ordering system reduces supply chain time and costs and reduces ordering errors
by releasing a significant amount of Nursing time back into the ward
by simplifying ordering - the data is inputted direct to the supplier via a hand-held barcode reader

Materials Management provides management information:

that can be used to forecast required stock
it can provide statistical analysis of historical data and generate reports to review product use and to identify better efficiencies

Materials Management gives flexibility to manage products:

by helping with product standardisation programmes and effective stock control, leading to more efficient use of limited storage space on the wards
by providing a modular storage system
by streamlining receipting procedures, leading to improved payment systems

Materials Management saves money:

by saving on requisition costs, reducing obsolescence and waste and simplifying stock valuation for the trust
by helping to give a clearer understanding of a Trust's spend and operating costs
by providing realistic stock levels linked to actual usage - matching service delivery with Trust actual service needs