Level 3 Candidates Success

Congratulations to the latest successful Level 3 programme candidates who have been awarded the LCS Level 3 Certificate of Lean Competency, having completed their submission of evidence demonstrating their strategic implementation capability and in-depth appreciation of lean and related CI knowledge.

James Lascelles

James is a partner at Baringa and leads the Process Transformation practice. Prior to joining the company in 2012, he was an Executive Partner at IBM Global Business Services heading up their Operations Strategy practice and he has more than twelve years’ experience in operational excellence specialising in lean methodology, value stream and team process improvements, capability building and deployment.

James’s case submissions were focused on implementations in major financial services organisations and included the enterprise deployment of lean, end-to-end value stream optimisation and value stream improvement of a medium term planning process.

His reflections from the cases and observations on the development of lean thinking were insightful and illuminating, in particular relating to sustainability challenges and lean’s inherent fragility. His recommendations for future focus centred on adopting a “fractal” view of lean, deploying on three dimensions and implementing “contingency road maps”. James says that a book could emerge as a result of his deliberations, so watch this space!

Alison Bolton

Alison has been the Service Improvement Lead at Wye Valley NHS Trust since 2011 and was previously Service Development Manager at Herefordshire Primary Care Trust and ICT Training and Development Manager at Herefordshire Health Informatics Service. She has an MBA in Health and Social Care.

Alison’s cases focussed on the development of a Frailty Assessment Unit, the development of a Hospital at Home function  and the development of an integrated team of multi-disciplinary health and social care professionals based around defined communities. The cases had a strong resonance with current healthcare resources pressures, where controlling demand for hospital based services and improving patient throughput are seen as critical to alleviating system pressures.

Alison’s observations and conclusions included a belief that lean principles can be used effectively within the NHS, though require some adaptation and contextualisation, and that a blend of approaches is needed, especially as there is a wide variety of audiences to impact. She believes staff empowerment is one of the key aspects for success, along with senior leadership buy-in and that “thoughtful solutions [should be] delivered in as practical a way as possible”.

Finally, Alison also concluded that proper reflection can “unearth significant treasures”, which handily reinforces the Level 3 programme focus and ethos!