MIAA was engaged by a large NHS community and mental health Trust to conduct an independent review of its Community Equipment Services. These services are essential in supporting hospital discharge, preventing admissions, and enabling patient independence. With rising demand and static funding, the Trust required external expertise to assess operational efficiency and inform future service sustainability.

The Challenge

The Trust faced persistent budgetary pressures in its Community Equipment Services, with expenditure exceeding allocated funding year-on-year. The Trust needed a comprehensive diagnostic to identify opportunities for in-year and recurrent savings, assess operational, clinical, and administrative efficiency, quantify potential return on investment, and inform strategic decisions about future service models.

Our Approach

MIAA deployed a senior delivery team to lead a structured, collaborative review process. Key elements included:

• Stock optimisation review across procurement, logistics, and recycling.
• Targeted audits to identify gaps in operational and clinical controls with detailed process mapping to identify digital system and service delivery inefficiencies and duplication.
• Review of prescribing processes.
• Stakeholder engagement with finance leads and operational teams.
• Phased delivery with regular feedback and a final report of recommendations.

The Impact

The diagnostic phase delivered clear insights and practical outputs.
The team Identified operational efficiency opportunities across a range of operational, financial, clinical and system processes.

The analysis provided a breakdown of recurrent and non-recurrent opportunities within the current financial year and in the medium term. It identified where longer-term savings could be identified through a more strategic and service re-design approach.

Five big tickets recommendations were proposed, supported by a detailed report:

• Clearly targeted approach to short-term delivery savings
• Streamlining and improving IT systems
• Focus on the front-end prescriber input
• Consolidation of the services under a single operating framework and single IT system
• Future design of the service model

The Trust is taking forwards the focus on in year efficiency opportunities and seeking support to progress the medium to longer term priorities.

For more information about our how we can support your organisation, contact Steve Warburton, Director of Director of Delivery – Healthcare & Transformation.