At the recent Independent Healthcare Forum in London, Ali Parsa, the CEO behind Circle, gave his view on where the UK is missing out in the worldwide economy and what we need to do to get back on track. His message was simple…focus on what you are really good at and give it 100%. His message rings true for the economy as a whole and for the private healthcare sector in particular. “Stop preserving the old, and create the new”.
And according to Circle’s Ali Parsa, one thing this country is very good at is healthcare. Despite the relentless media knocking of the NHS, we need to be a bit more positive about how good we are. If you watched the recent documentary on Great Ormond Street, you may have noticed how many of the leading specialists featured were not British. Why is this? It’s because, if you are a paediatrician anywhere in the world, Great Ormond Street is on your shortlist of “places I need to work to advance my career”. The Harris International Patient Centre at Great Ormond Street brings in over £25 million of revenue; children travel there from all over the world to be treated because they believe it to be the best.
It is encouraging to see a new initiative to export British healthcare abroad. A new agency will be established to link hospitals such as Great Ormond Street with foreign governments that want access to British-run health services Let’s hope this one gets off the ground and doesn’t suffer the fate of NHS Global which never got out of the starting blocks.
If we tasked the British Cycling performance director with improving services in the private healthcare sector, how would he approach it? The “Olympic message” for the private healthcare sector is that if you want to be the very best at what you do, break down the delivery of a healthcare service into each constituent part and work to become a little bit better than your competition at every point in the process.
So, if you’re trying to attract self-pay patients for hip replacement:
Make your “first touch” whether it be via your web site, email, on the phone or in print that much better than your competition.
If you offer a fixed price package, don’t make it cheaper, make it more understandable, and add value to it.
If you offer a guarantee…make sure the patient realises that (many don’t!).
Make your admission process 10% slicker and 10% more customer friendly than your competitors’ process.
Make your post-discharge follow up and support 10% slicker and 10% more customer friendly than your competitors’. This will not be very difficult! If there’s one significant shortcoming in the delivery of the patient experience in the private healthcare sector. This is where it is. It’s time to get away from the “treat them, bill them, get them out of the door and forget about them” approach which seems to be all too common in our sector.
Let’s learn from our Olympic success, and deliver some golds for the UK healthcare sector to patients both here and abroad!
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