Trust through transparency

Published: 30 June 2017 Ezine

The second keynote presentation of the day was delivered by the Medical Director of EMRAD, Tim Taylor, a neuroradiologist at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. EMRAD is a consortium of seven Trusts in the Midlands, which aims to share information and resources. 

What began as merely a sharing of information to make the procurement process more economical and efficient, has grown into a huge collaboration; trusts have been working towards a shared system to facilitate insourcing and make the most of workforce capacity, with staff, managers, radiologists, clinicians and PACs managers working together to share information in real-time.

“What we found initially was that some of the problems started with ourselves, so we started talking with our neighbours, who were experiencing similar problems and agreed that we were looking at a massive traffic jam with nobody going anywhere, and that we couldn’t deal with alone. It is not easy and there have been plenty of problems but it is working.”

“The Five Year Forward View is ‘faster, harder, better, stronger’ but where are the resources to do that? Clinical quality is not the number of people going through a scanner – that’s just productivity.

“Working in a consortium is absolutely fantastic and East Midlands is now incredibly efficient. Trust is the key – you have to build the trust through transparency and be prepared for setbacks – just keep going.”