NHS Teaching Hospitals Substantially Benefit From Vehicle Tracking

According to an article published by Fleet News Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has reduced their fleet size by 20% and reduced its expenditure by thousands of pounds, whilst still retaining its previous staff levels. The fleet now travels over 200,000 miles less per year but despite all the savings, has achieved an increase in growth and improvements in services.

These changes were achieved when the NHS Trust decided to invest in vehicle tracking solutions and now they are finding that they are able to do more work with smaller overheads. Dave Taylor, the Trust’s Transport Facilities Manager says that the tracking system has ‘improved our planning, enabled us to use the fleet more effectively and helped us be more efficient’.

The Trust’s vehicle tracking solution allows them to see where their vehicles are at any time of day or night using a computer screen. The tracking device is mounted on the glove box and can be fitted in any type of vehicle. The decision to install the tracking system was taken after managers realised the limitations of a paper based system and discovered that if they had total visibility over their fleet at all times then their logistics would run much more efficiently, and this would be of benefit to the Trust and to the service users.
One of the main problems with how the service used to run was that vehicles were crossing over on their journeys, just because they were being used for different departments or functions. Telematics gave the Hospital Trust an opportunity to look at where these incidents were occurring and affirmed to them that they made the right decision to purchase more ‘multi functional’ vehicles. Another benefit was that if an emergency request came in for one of the vehicles, operators could see immediately which vehicle was closest to the location, and deploy them, saving valuable time and money. An example of the type of situation this could revolve around is if results were needed urgently for a patient that was in danger, and the next stage of their treatment depended on it, the closest vehicle could be sent to pick the sample up and drop it at the lab.

The timing of the Trust’s decision to install a vehicle tracking solution revolved around them needing to update their fleet. They decided to install vehicle tracking and purchase more multi functional vehicles. The savings projections that the transport team presented were strong enough to get this passed by the Hospital Board. Access to the tracking system has been granted to the departments that the vehicles are allocated to. They are not able to directly influence the drivers through the system but knowing what time scales the fleet are running to helps them to plan their resources better around the requirements of the patients.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust participated in a significant amount of ‘high response’ work. This is where the drivers report directly to an operating theatre and pick up the specimen (or organ/tissue), and take it straight to the laboratory for diagnosis. Sometimes the next stage of operations cannot be completed until the results are back. With the vehicle tracking system, the pathology department can see when the driver is setting off from the theatre and can on standby to receive it. This system can help the NHS Trust to save lives.

The Hospital Trust have found that they are becoming more ‘commercially minded’ through seeing the results from the vehicle tracking system. There are a number of essential services that the Trust could complete itself now the fleet is running more efficiently, but these are currently being sub contracted out at quite a large cost. If the Trust could run thee services itself then they would save a huge amount of money every year. This money can then be re-invested in patient care.

This case study is a very good example of the creative ways in which a business can apply a vehicle tracking system and of the savings and benefits that can be achieved by doing so. To find out how much a vehicle tracking system could save your business use TrackCompare’s Vehicle Tracking Benefit Calculator.