• Home /
• Case studies BCM /
• BS 25999 Certification case studies /
• London emergency department implements business continuity management system to help save lives in event of disruption

London emergency department implements business continuity management system to help save lives in event of disruption

Customer needs

• Improve resilience within the Emergency Department
• Build on existing continuity planning
  and good practice
• Ensure the continuous operational delivery of services in the event of disruption
• Help comply with legislation

Customer benefits

A framework for building operational resilience with the capability for an
effective response

• A management process to identify potential impacts and  defining
  activities and resources critical to the operation
• A clearer understanding of the entire organisation resulting in new opportunities for improvement

“The rigour required to achieve certification has resulted in more comprehensive risk assessments, better staff training and awareness. It has also created opportunities for improvement, such as the acquisition of additional equipment assessed as being potentially life saving in the event of a loss of key resources.”
Lynne Watkins
Joint Divisional Head of Nursing
Emergency Department

Background

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s largest and busiest teaching hospitals, with over 6,500 staff providing around 800,000 patient contacts a year. King’s has a unique profile, with a full range of local hospital services for people in the London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark as well as specialist services to patients from further afield. The Foundation Trust is part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), a pioneering collaboration between King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts.

Why certification

The Emergency Department at King’s decided to implement the business continuity management system, BS 25999, as a proactive response to the NHS Resilience Project. The project, launched by the UK Department of Health in late 2007, is aimed at encouraging the spread of best practice in business continuity management within NHS organisations, and improving their resilience to crisis situations and disruptions. The Board of Directors at King’s was keen to demonstrate a best practice approach and believed certification would give independent assurance to all stakeholders that its most challenging and public-facing service had a resilient operational framework in place.

Implementation

King’s has been implementing BS 25999 across the whole Trust over the past two years. The scope of the certification currently covers the provision of emergency department services which was achieved in just 18 months thanks to the implementation of Shadow-Planner business continuity software.

The department is very busy with 124,638 attendances in 2009. On average King’s sees 340 patients a day with a significant increase in ’blue light’ activity (priority calls from the London Ambulance Service) in 2009. “It is not unusual to have more than 400 patients a day,” says Lynne Watkins, Joint Divisional Head of Nursing Emergency Department, ”so accessing staff for training and awareness and keeping records of all of this, whilst delivering a 24 hour – 7 day a week – 365 day per year service was a challenge. We were able to overcome this though by training staff in clinical and nursing handovers, in their clinical areas, as well as through induction and at staff meetings.”

“Another early challenge was recording which resources were not essential in the first 0, 2 or 30 minutes in an area where patients need many resources immediately in the more critical areas,” continues Lynne. “Once our employees were trained, however, this became easier using the Shadow-Planner software.” “The staff have been extremely supportive of the management system. It underpins our long history of being leaders of emergency planning. Attaining independent third party certification of our systems and processes further demonstrates this.”

Benefits of working with BSI

“BSI was recognised as the most credible certification body, so was the natural choice,” says Lynne. “The BSI staff have been professional at all times and the level of scrutiny is robust. This is our first certification in relation to business continuity, although the Trust does hold a number of other  certifications.” The BSI gap analysis and one day ‘health check’ proved valuable tools to guide the Trust’s Business Continuity Programme Manager, Martin Lowthian, on our journey to certification. Using these methods we were able to identify which services, if interrupted for any reason, would have the greatest impact upon the community and the organisation. In response we have been able to develop plans to help us recover and/or maintain these core services in the shortest possible timeframe. “As a result of implementing the management system our business continuity plans are far more accessible. There are fewer words, but far greater clarity and accuracy as to who should do what, broadly how and when. Another key outcome of the implementation has been the acquisition of more battery operated equipment to allow the treatment of critically ill patients in the event of lost infrastructure.”

For further information about how to get started with business continuity management, download our training schedule at: www.bsigroup.co.uk/training or call 0845 086 9000 for details.