Prioritising the frontline: Innovation in healthcare retail for efficiency gains

As a leader of an NHS Trust, driving efficiency improvements can be challenging when frontline teams are already time poor and run down. How do you deliver more when staff struggle to even find the time to eat and refuel - which has a knock-on effect for both productivity and patient care?  

These issues were highlighted in a recent survey of 8,573 health staff working in hospitals or mental health trusts throughout the UK¹. Of those queried for the study, it was revealed that 53% said they were unable to take regular breaks and 16% stated they only had enough time during busy shifts to eat snacks such as chocolate or crisps.

More so, the survey goes on to find that:

A report by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body² found that staff fatigue contributes directly and indirectly to patient harm, which can arise from factors such as insufficient rest facilities and inadequate rest breaks during and between shifts.  

Even when staff do get the opportunity for a break, it’s typically very short and often less than 30 minutes – during which staff need to leave their clinical areas, travel to onsite (or offsite) food facilities, order, collect and eat their meal. A recent Sodexo study discovered that ‘convenience’ and ‘quick to eat’ were two of the top three motivations when deciding on choice of food during a work break in healthcare.  

This research highlights that efforts must be made to be giving time back to workers to enhance their efficiency in the working environment. After all, it is clear that a person’s wellbeing can affect their productivity and delivery of their roles.

One way to improve the working environment is to ensure they have access to hot and cold food in a convenient and efficient way.  

Sodexo has recently introduced a brand-new digital restaurant concept to directly tackle these challenges. NHS Trusts, and those in the UK’s healthcare sector, will often discover that outsourcing can drive effective innovations and deliver efficiencies across many operations, including retail.  

Outsourcing with Sodexo can help you to establish a new model of retail excellence throughout your Trust, transforming your facilities’ retail operations and driving efficiencies throughout your working environment. 

Retail innovation is seen to drive efficiencies and give much-needed time back to frontline team, improving their welfare in the process. Trust leaders must therefore do what they can to strategically enhance their hospital environment’s retail services for the wellbeing of all their stakeholders, including their workforce.

Find out more about our food services for NHS staff

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