Survey Partner: GOSS Interactive NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014
NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014 The Survey As the cost of healthcare provision increases, NHS organisations need to find new, lower-cost ways of delivering services. With challenges including an ageing population, an increasing prevalence of long-term medical conditions and a mandate to go paperless by 2018, the NHS is being forced to radically rethink service delivery in order to manage public health issues and improve patient care. The NHS cannot be the last man standing as the rest of the economy embraces the technology revolution. Only with world class information systems will the NHS deliver world class care. - Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, January 2013 In response to the challenge, this survey by GOSS Interactive and igov Survey reveals widespread support for a Digital First or Channel Shift approach, with NHS organisations making a concerted effort to move more service delivery to lower-cost channels where appropriate. Fortunately these trends coincide with the emergence of the digital citizen, presenting a major opportunity to shift significant volumes of telephone and face-to-face transactions to lower-cost digital channels like desktop and mobile web self-service, online teleconsultations, social media and SMS. How many digital citizens does the UK have? 2013 figures from Ofcom 1 show that 80% of UK adults are now online, and 51% own a smartphone. In fact mobile web use is accelerating at a fantastic rate, with 30% of all web traffic to public sector websites now coming from a smartphone, tablet or hybrid device, according to GOSS research. However, not everyone can get online, and NHS organisations still have to cater to those who can t or won t use digital channels. But Channel Shift isn t just about digital: there are also huge savings to be gained from replacing face-toface consultations and letters with phone, email or SMS interactions where appropriate. Public Sector Channel Shift Strategies 2014 is the first igov survey to examine current Channel Shift efforts and plans across the UK public sector. Commissioned and devised by GOSS Interactive, it explores how 480 public sector organisations are approaching Channel Shift, the barriers (real and perceived) to achieving it, how organisations are overcoming these obstacles, and what benefits they have gained or expect to gain from their Channel Shift strategy. Digital services can be accessed whenever you want them. They are also much more efficient, saving taxpayers money and the user s time. Online transactions can be 20 times cheaper than by phone, 30 times cheaper than face-to-face and up to 50 times cheaper than by post. - Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, November 2012 The following pages provide an extract of the survey findings for the 52 NHS organisations surveyed. For a copy of the full report, which also includes findings for Local and Central Government, Charities, Housing Associations, Non- Departmental Public Bodies 2, Universities and Colleges, Civil Society 3 and the Police, visit www.gossinteractive.com/public-sector-channel-shift-strategies 1 Ofcom The Communications Market 2013 report. 2 Non Departmental Public Bodies include Care Councils, Commissions and public-owned transportation bodies. 3 Civil Society includes institutes, forums and learning & skills agencies. Page 2 : NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014
Profile of Respondents A total of 81 senior executives from 52 NHS organisations responded to the survey. Individuals identified themselves as Chief Executive (7%), Director (27%), Head (25%), Manager (24%) and Other (17%). Roles in the Other category span a wide range of portfolios, including Marketing, ICT, Procurement and Administration. Count: 130 Count: 81 Count: 81 Methodology The survey was conducted online by igov Survey between the 10th and 27th September 2013 and updated with new customer service data January 2014. NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014 : Page 3
What is Channel Shift? Channel Shift is a strategy for moving a greater proportion of transactions and interactions to lower-cost channels typically (but not exclusively) digital ones like online self-service, mobile, social media, SMS, and web kiosks. The aims of Channel Shift are to: Save money through lower transaction costs Ensure a high standard of service for web-savvy customers Conduct transactions and provide information online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Provide a consistent service/process for all channels Channel Shift is not an ICT project, but a strategic initiative. Rather than simply moving current processes online, the aim is to re-engineer those processes to remove bottlenecks and inefficiencies inherited from a pre-internet era. The best results are achieved by organisations that are capable of radically reorganising their operations for a digital world. More information about how GOSS can help you develop and implement your channel shift strategy can be found here: http://www.gossinteractive.com/channel-shift Summary of key findings The survey provides a detailed insight into how NHS organisations are approaching Channel Shift and the benefits they are seeing from it. The key findings are as follows. 1. Channel Shift is contributing to NHS organisations efficiency savings. In an era of rising costs and stretched budgets, Channel Shift is an essential cost-saving strategy. Over 50% of respondents from NHS organisations feel it will help to achieve efficiency savings for their organisation. It was also interesting to note the high proportion of Don t Know responses from across the NHS, demonstrating that the NHS has much further to go with Channel Shift than other public sector organisations. Count: 30 Page 4 : NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014
2. Respondents are actively leading or involved in Channel Shift projects. For a portion of respondents to our survey, Channel Shift is a defined part of their job role. Of those, 13% said they are directly responsible for Channel Shift projects and 87% said they are actively involved in making Channel Shift happen. Count: 55 While some NHS organisations view Channel Shift as the responsibility of customer service (3%) or communications/marketing (17%), a significant proportion state that it is being led from the top. Over a third (35%) of respondents said that Channel Shift in their organisation was led by the Chief Executive s office (21%) or a dedicated Transformation team (14%). That proportion may increase as Channel Shift becomes more of a strategic consideration (see page 6). Count: 58 NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014 : Page 5
3. Organisations are not yet approaching Channel Shift strategically, but that s about to change. While the majority of respondents are leading or participating in Channel Shift projects, most organisations are not yet treating it as an organisation-wide strategic initiative. Only 24% reported that their organisation had adopted a clear Channel Shift strategy whereas this was up to 60% in other public sector organisations. Count: 81 However, of the 76% who do not currently have an organisation-wide Channel Shift strategy, 70% said this is an area they plan to address in the next 12 months. This may indicate that the severity of the current challenges in maintaining and improving standards in healthcare delivery is forcing more organisations to take a serious, top-down look at reorganising their operations. Count: 15 This means that by the end of 2014, up to 78% of NHS organisations expect to have a clear Channel Shift strategy for delivering services via digital and lower-cost channels. Page 6 : NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014
4. Systems integration and senior management buy-in are the main barriers to channel shift success in the NHS. Despite the benefits of Channel Shift being widely understood, NHS respondents to the GOSS/iGov Survey report cite a number of organisational and technical barriers that are slowing down the rollout of Channel Shift. These include systems integration (21%), lack of senior management buy-in (18%), technology (18%), lack of skills (10%), lack of budget (7%), and staff culture (5%). Count: 85 It s understandable that systems integration and technology emerges as the top barrier. Many NHS organisations today run disjointed systems that require data to be re-keyed manually, and which make it difficult to put processes online that span multiple systems. For Channel Shift to be successful, these processes need to be understood and mapped, and the relevant systems integrated to enable fast, straightthrough processing with no human intervention. This will deliver much greater customer engagement, with faster responses and far fewer errors, and will accelerate the benefits of Channel Shift. Lack of senior management engagement is another key issue, but educating senior management on the financial benefits of Channel Shift can result in swift and enthusiastic buy-in. To give just one example, a one-day workshop held by GOSS for Stirling City Council gained the buy-in of 60+ service heads and senior management to a Channel Shift action plan. 5. Not everything is a suitable candidate for Channel Shift Much of NHS service delivery has to be provided in a face-to-face setting, so the opportunities for channel shift are less pronounced than they are in for example local government. NHS organisations must think hard about which processes and services will deliver the best returns, both for themselves and for patients and the general public. That said, one-fifth of NHS respondents say they plan to shift 11-24% of services in the next 12 months, with another 13% saying they plan to shift between a quarter and half of their services and 13% aiming to shift between half and three-quarters. Count: 37 NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014 : Page 7
6. Putting customers at the heart of your Channel Shift Strategy For Channel Shift to be successful in the NHS, it has to deliver what patients and the general public want. Almost all of the responding NHS organisations carry out some kind of patient needs analysis, using a range of methods. Analysing website traffic was the most popular approach, followed by face-to-face interviews (23%), analysis of demographic data (14%) and analysis of CRM data (12%). Interestingly, 8% of NHS organisations say they are using social media monitoring for market research, a number we expect to see increasing in the next few years as social media monitoring tools become more sophisticated and more affordable. Only 2% of respondents who answered this question said they do not do any customer research. Count: 51 7. The mobile web is seen as the biggest cost-saving opportunity. With 51% of UK adults now owning a smartphone, the web is more accessible than ever, especially for people in lower-income and other formerly digitally excluded demographics. This may be the reason that 31% of the respondents to this survey see mobile websites as the channel that can deliver the most savings, compared to 20% for desktop websites, 11% for social media, 11% for LiveChat and 20% for telephone. Count: 68 Page 8 : NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014
Conclusions The GOSS/iGov Survey is the largest of its kind into public sector Channel Shift strategies in the UK. It uncovers a lot of new information about attitudes towards Channel Shift in the NHS, as well as progress towards achieving Channel Shift goals; different approaches to enabling Channel Shift; and the benefits and gains that NHS organisations expect to achieve from it. Channel Shift is viewed as a critical means of achieving the cost savings and efficiency gains needed to cope with the immense pressures being placed on the National Health Service. With more obvious cost-saving mechanisms already exhausted, a radical, strategic and top-down approach to shifting more service delivery to lower-cost channels is becoming more prevalent and is likely to become even more widespread in 2014-2015. However, there is still a long way to go before the NHS can be considered to be truly Digital First. Radical thinking is tempered by the knowledge that not everyone can or wants to use new, digital channels, and that the NHS must ensure that customers can always access the same breadth and quality of service through traditional channels, too. But even among traditional channels there are savings to be made if the shift is handled sensitively, especially in terms of moving face-to-face enquiries to the phone when appropriate. Despite recognising the benefits of Channel Shift, NHS organisations are being hampered in their efforts to implement it mainly by the need to integrate different IT systems, and by a lack of senior management buy-in. It remains to be seen how long the latter can be used as a reason to delay Channel Shift initiatives, since the cost of sticking with expensive patient engagement processes (for example, face-to-face consultations, letters and phone calls) is far higher than the cost of moving service delivery to lower-cost channels. Finally, patients need to be at the heart of any NHS Channel Shift strategy. While the primary driver for many organisations is the cost savings, there s also widespread recognition that people increasingly want and expect to be able to use newer, digital channels to engage with NHS organisations. Understanding what patients want and need, and which channels/technologies they are using to carry out key tasks, is critical to the success of any Channel Shift strategy. Without it, patients are likely to revert to the old channels, and any financial gains will be rapidly lost. NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014 : Page 9
Acknowledgements The survey team at igov Survey would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who were kind enough to take part and especially to those who found the time to offer additional insight through their extra comments. We would also like to thank our sponsors, GOSS Interactive, for their assistance in compiling the survey questions, scrutinising the responses and analysing the results. About igov Survey We are an independent team of public sector experts who are responsible for the delivery of public sector related surveys. Our dedicated editorial team work with our clients to collate information about UK public services and the ever-changing environment in which it exists in 2013. igov surveys are targeted at senior level professionals and decision-makers and provide a current insight into how this group think. We also aim to provide our partners with intelligence to support future communications. Visit: www.igovsurvey.com About GOSS Leading edge web technology from GOSS Interactive powers some of the UK s leading websites, including the Met Office, Brittany Ferries, BBC, Berkeley Group, Virgin Trains and over 80 public sector organisations. Built around the multi-award-winning GOSS icm (intelligent Content Management), the GOSS Customer Experience Management tools and consultancy empower organisations to deliver web, mobile and social media strategies that reduce costs, enhance revenues, and deliver superior customer service. About GOSS Channel Shift Consulting Public sector Channel Shift specialists from GOSS work with organisations across the UK to help them bring service delivery into the mobile, social and connected age. GOSS Channel Shift consultancy services comprise research, workshops, consultancy and interdepartmental liaison the exact mix is up to the individual customer. Over the past few years we ve helped public sector customers to achieve major strategic and cost saving benefits, including: Joined-up service delivery that s truly customer focused Seven-figure cost savings from shifting to lower cost channels Four-star ratings in Socitm s Better Connected survey Senior management and cross service buy-in to new Channel Shift strategies To find out more about how GOSS can help you to develop a sustainable, user-centred Channel Shift strategy that delivers incremental cost savings while improving customer service, contact us on: Telephone: 0844 880 3637 Email: enquiries@gossinteractive.com Visit: www.gossinteractive.com/channel-shift Page 10 : NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014
Appendix II Participating Organisations 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Barts Health NHS Trust Bedford Hospital NHS Trust Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust Central College Nottingham Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust Countess Of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Hexagon Housing Association High Speed Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust LHC Network Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust London Ambulance Service NHS Trust Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS foundation Trust NHS Central Southern CSU NHS Direct NHS Education for Scotland NHS England NHS England NHS Forth Valley NHS Hammersmith and Fulham CCG NHS Kent and Medway CSU NHS Shared Business Services NHS Supply Chain Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust Stockport NHS Foundation Trust Borough Council Sussex Community NHS Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Tandridge District Council Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust The Prince s Trust The Sheffield Children s NHS Foundation Trust NHS Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2014 : Page 11
GOSS Interactive & igov Survey 2014