Blending the best of both worlds, Eastbourne’s NHS Trust Laundry provides a specialist service with proactive ideas.
Part of the Commercial Services Department and closely linked with SSD, the laundry is headed by Bill Edwards, whose enterprising outlook has played a crucial part in driving the laundry forward.
Mr Edwards began his career as a trainee manager for the health service. He went on to work in health service laundries and spent a further seven years in the commercial laundry sector, only to turn his hand at laundry management consultancy where he was involved with all sectors of the market, from workwear and large scale linen rental to the processing of industrial wipers before landing the job at Eastbourne.
Now, he manages a team of 115 people, working two shifts.
The laundry runs to “near capacity”, processing over 220 000 items/week, some 20 tonnes/day and the Trust’s work represents only 15% of the laundry’s overall business.
The laundry handles work for 40 different hospitals and around 30 hotels.
“I’ve always been a laundry production manager,” he says, explaining that his role is to ensure his team can do their work to the best of their capacity.
Although he is a hands-on manager who knows all his staff by name, part of his time is deployed in gathering information on his competitors. A strategy map is plotted in his office. “We look at their strengths and look for ways to match or improve on them,” he says.
“Competitive tendering, far from being detrimental, offers us opportunities and we find we are also competitively tendering ourselves all the time.
“We are always asking what our customers see as our competitor’s main advantages. What other markets are our competitors aiming at?” Matching needs with benefits is the laundry’s objective. “For example, we realised there was an opening for contract laundry business in the Eastbourne area. With our spare washer-extractor capacity we were able to accommodate extra work. In the last six months the laundry has been able to acquire 30 different hotel contracts.” The hotel work provides “reasonable margins”. The service is sold on the basis of the quality which is provided by the plant.
“In the NHS the biggest problem we face is the disadvantage we have on VAT. Since we are a government department, unlike commercial operators, we cannot reclaim VAT on our purchases. That means we must work harder to run our operation more efficiently.” NHS laundries have to generate “operating surpluses”, or profit. There is no way in which a Trust will subsidise an operation that didn’t make money, he explains.
The laundry has three continuous batch washers—two 10-stage machines and a 12-stage unit, plus, at the end of each tunnel, two double dryers and two single dryers—“the equivalent of six dryers”. There is also a steam finishing tunnel and four ironers “The two shifts process 110 000 items,” Mr Edwards explains. “Some might say this could be accomplished using two continuous batch washers, but, when one machine was due to be replaced, we decided to retain it, because it will enable us to give our customers what they want first and foremost—reliability.
“We also ensure we have sufficient dryers and our sequencing is controlled by computer, not the operator. This ensures we get 90% utilisation of the equipment,” he explains.
“We are constantly investing in new machinery, but naturally, this has to be phased,” he says. Repairs are made on-site and every section has its own inspection procedure.
The promise of reliability to the customer extends to the amount of linen stock which is in the system at any one time. “We always allow for a sufficient amount of linen to be held in the system, plus any extra we anticipate we might need.” Like any laundry, linen losses are a major concern. To avoid some reasons for the problem of disappearing linen, items are carefully specified. “This kind of fitness for purpose gives our customers good quality and value for money,” Mr Edwards says, adding that the rate of loss for bath towels alone is around 15%/year.
The linen, once processed, is protected by shrink-wrapping and packed in standard quantities on pallets.
Every pack is batch marked to make traceability that much easier for both customer and laundry.
Because every nurse is seen as a customer, garments such as scrub suits and patient’s nightwear are batched by size and have colour-coded collar labels to help ward staff quickly find the item in the size they want.
Eastbourne District General Hospital’s SSD was the first site in the UK to be awarded the CE mark. It also has accreditation to ISO 9002 and EN 46002. Its clean room is ready and waiting for the legislation which takes effect in June of this year.
SSD manager Ian Finlayson says the department “offers one of the best blends of one-stop management of laundry and sterile supply services.
“SSD has tremendous potential, in view of the forthcoming legislation and the Trust has had the foresight to invest in its cleanroom operations.” The laundry has always had a quality assurance system in place, akin to ISO 9002, but decided to gain the recognition and the confirmation of excellence that accreditation would provide. The team worked solidly for six months to reach this aim.
Quality control co-ordinator Jennifer Tasker was re-deployed from her former administrative job to help maintain the SSD schemes and bring the laundry’s accreditation to fruition.
Says Bill Edwards: “We are one of the few laundries to be recommended for ISO 9002 that has not had to employ an outside consultant.” He explains that the work involved writing down everything that the laundry did. “This forces you to examine every system that is used and has meant we have been able to reduce many of our costs while increasing our workload,” Mr Edwards comments.
“We have also focused on training our staff. Now we will only consider someone has been trained if they have completed a written examination.” Far from begrudging the extra work, “the staff responded brilliantly,” Mr Edwards says. “The knowledge of being the best in what they do is seen as a major motivating factor.” ISO 9002 also ensures everyone at the plant adopts the same systems. “The marketing element for the laundry will come from customers who view this as a strong benefit.” Other benefits, Mr Edwards explains, are how ISO 9002 “make you keep in touch with what your customers want on an ongoing basis”.
Under the scheme, the laundry will have to conduct a review of every contract every six months. “This makes sure the service we provide is still appropriate for the customer,” Mr Edwards explains.
The laundry also has a system in place for dealing with complaints. “Any source of disatisfaction from a customer, no matter how trivial, is taken on-board and analysed over time. It allows us to look to the future, to anticipate needs and match them with benefits.
“ISO 9002 is a first step and part of an evolutionary programme of always moving forward,” he says.
According to commercial services manager, Hugh McIntosh, “in recent years we have experienced a remark-able change in our management approach. Previously, managers had no real commercial experience, but now our team has been strengthened by our managers’ commercial backgrounds. This gives us a more realistic approach to the business.
“As such, we ask our customers to share some of the realities of commercial life,” he adds.
“Unfortunately, there is no level playing field between customer and supplier and customers often insist that this remains so. That, I believe, is a recipe for disaster, because there can be no mutual benefit.” The way to get prices to come down, Mr McIntosh believes, is for suppliers and customers to jointly examine those areas that cost more and work towards bringing those costs down.
In the hospital’s linen room, for example, Bill Edwards ensures staff record stock manually. “This enables us to monitor trends in demand,” he says. “From April, our new computer system will ensure that all customers will be charged for what we place on their ward shelves, rather than by bulk quantities supplied to their linen rooms. It will also give our customers greater management information to help them to adjust their costs.”
