3d animation still for Kerv 3d animation still for Kerv

Case Study

How Buckinghamshire NHS Trust sped up their service

Client

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS

Sector

Healthcare

Project Type

Project, Programme & Delivery Consultancy

Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

NHS Trust Buckinghamshire Healthcare Logo

Overview

A leading NHS Trust needed to migrate their IT service to a new platform and implement new ways of working to transform their delivery.

Buckinghamshire NHS Trust (BHT) IT team offer services to over 6,000 healthcare professionals supporting over 500,000 patients per year.

 

The BHT team have a clear mission to be the highest performing NHS Trust IT team across the UK and have started a transformation journey to achieve that goal.

Background & Context

During the height of the COVID pandemic, the BHT leadership team made a bold decision to implement a new IT Service Management (ITSM) solution to allow them to better manage the huge spike in demand they were experiencing. They selected ServiceNow as the ITSM tool and commissioned Kerv Consult to manage a one-month implementation project.

Due to the significant pressure the NHS faced, the team rallied together and applied agile best practice to deliver a solution within 3.5 days of the project kick off (not weeks or the full month). This was the fastest deployment of ServiceNow in NHS history.

The solution immediately demonstrated considerable benefit to the team delivering the service.

Due to the success of this, BHT decided to extend ServiceNow to replace their ITSM solution used to manage their entire IT service, not just for the COVID related demand. That decision sparked this project.

SOLUTION

The BHT team engaged Kerv Consult to deliver a further agile project, a three-month initiative to replace a legacy Support Works ITSM solution with ServiceNow as well as develop and embed new processes and ways of working. Unifii Ltd. were also engaged to deliver the technical elements of the ServiceNow solution and the project team consisted of Kerv Consult, BHT and Unifii working in unison.

A key focus of the project was developing the Incident Management and Service Request Fulfilment processes to be as transparent and efficient as possible as that is where the vast majority of the BHT team focussed their efforts. Therefore, the automation we delivered could drive the most significant benefit in that area.

From the outset, BHT Chief Technology Officer Phillip Neal stated:

“We want this project to be an example of Agile done well. We have allowed 12 weeks, so we must deliver within 12 weeks. If we have to shift anything, it will be the scope”.

 

However, the scope was not compromised, but instead, the project team considerably exceeded that which was agreed. Despite delivering more than planned, the solution also went live several days before the agreed milestone date (10 weeks into the project).

3d animation still for Kerv

Rather than simply define and build the Service Requests on behalf of the IT team, the project team invested the time to train the IT team to allow them to build their own within the system. The full credit for proposing this approach goes to the BHT Team; it was their suggestion, Kerv Consult and Unifii agilely accommodated the approach. Put into practice; instead of 15 key requests that the project was scoped to deliver, there were 85 built, tested and released, including those from the BHT IT team. The approach had the added benefit of ensuring that future service request items could be added at speed without the need for a project to update the system as the knowledge had been successfully transferred into the Trust.

ServiceNow Director of Transformation, Graham Curran, said: “The project team’s focus on collaboration and communication with users really helped make this such a successful implementation and showed the power of strong business change disciplines” which was an excellent endorsement of the project and the team.

“A great example of team work and agile delivery, this was a fantastic achievement in support of the Trust’s COVID response and has made a big difference in our ability to manage urgent requests from our colleagues across the Trust.”

Phillip Neal, Chief Technology Officer, Bucks Healthcare NHS Trust

3d animation still for Kerv
Result

The clearest benefit is that incidents are resolved, and service requests are fulfilled much faster now that the new solution is in place. This is evidenced by the robust SLAs which were developed and the reporting which was built to measure them. Customers of the IT service were also delighted by the new solution as the first batch of CSAT surveys received indicated.

At the final of the fortnightly Steering Board meetings Neelesh Patel, BHT Service Desk Manager, said:

“This has taken the service forward by years, I would recommend it to any organisation”.

 

One of the key benefits is that BHT’s customers are now using the self-service portal to raise tickets rather than have to engage by phone. Reducing the number of calls the service team have to manage each day frees up valuable time for ticket enquiries. The customer also sees a significant benefit as the self-service tickets are assigned directly to the appropriate team to resolve those items. The result is that not only do customers save considerable time on the phone, but their tickets are automatically assigned for resolution. The shift from manual to automated assigning of tickets is a significant factor in the speed to resolution of tickets for the customers.

Interestingly, this auto-routing introduced a brand-new challenge to the BHT teams as a very small percentage of tickets are mis-classified by the customers and so are auto-routed to the wrong team. These teams mentioned that in some cases they were unsure which other team to send these tickets to as previously they would have been triaged before arriving with them.

Fortunately, this is actually a positive for the overall service, as teams do not want incorrect tickets in their queues so act quickly. Those incorrectly classified tickets are viewed within minutes of being raised and quickly passed to the Service Desk or another team which ensures that the tickets do not stagnate or age.

3d animation still for Kerv
Three men around a laptop in an office
FUTURE

Building on the success of this project, BHT have requested that Kerv Consult and Unifii continue to support the Trust to improve their IT service by delivering against the transformation roadmap.

We have discussed a series of agile projects to implement further ITSM capabilities, wider business capabilities and ways of working as we continue to deliver against the longer-term transformation roadmap for the service.

BHT has clear plans to be the best IT team across the NHS and has already demonstrated significant progress towards that goal. Kerv Consult is genuinely excited to continue to be part of the team which will make that a reality.

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Case Study

How Buckinghamshire NHS Trust sped up their service

Client

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS

Sector

Healthcare

Project Type

Project, Programme & Delivery Consultancy

Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

NHS Trust Buckinghamshire Healthcare Logo

Overview

A leading NHS Trust needed to migrate their IT service to a new platform and implement new ways of working to transform their delivery.

Buckinghamshire NHS Trust (BHT) IT team offer services to over 6,000 healthcare professionals supporting over 500,000 patients per year.

 

The BHT team have a clear mission to be the highest performing NHS Trust IT team across the UK and have started a transformation journey to achieve that goal.

CUSTOMER OVERVIEW

London Borough of Harrow Council (Harrow) provides services to approximately a quarter of a million citizens. The Harrow team had a clear goal; increasing autonomy over their services in order to strengthen and modernise delivery to their customers.

3d animation still for Kerv
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

As part of a wider programme of IT transformation initiatives in 2020, Harrow decided to transition to a SIAM delivery model and in-source a number of capabilities in order to have greater control of their services.

In Q2 2020, Harrow appointed a new IT Director, Ben Goward, who understood the benefit of transforming the Service. Ben set the team the challenge of implementing the new operating model before November 2020, when the outsourced agreement was due for renewal. This bold decision to transform within 6 months rather than extend the existing contract for a year, set the pace and context for delivery.

Kerv Consult was engaged to design some key elements of the service, such as processes to underpin the operating model, to ‘be the glue’ and ‘protect the service’, highlighting any gaps and to ensure that the elements of the complex new SIAM worked together. We were also selected to manage the transition of the most directly customer-facing services of End-User Computing (EUC) and the Service Desk.

It became clear early in the project scope that more extensive work was needed than originally foreseen. This additional work would be required to be completed within the remaining five months to achieve a successful go-live. As part of our analysis, we highlighted additional activities required to structure and stand up the services, both in-house and those with suppliers. This meant extensive planning and focus on the goal if it was to be achieved, however, by identifying these areas as early as possible, we ensured there was time to address gaps and protect the service.

3d animation still for Kerv
SOLUTION

The BHT team engaged Kerv Consult to deliver a further agile project, a three-month initiative to replace a legacy Support Works ITSM solution with ServiceNow as well as develop and embed new processes and ways of working. Unifii Ltd. were also engaged to deliver the technical elements of the ServiceNow solution and the project team consisted of Kerv Consult, BHT and Unifii working in unison.

A key focus of the project was developing the Incident Management and Service Request Fulfilment processes to be as transparent and efficient as possible as that is where the vast majority of the BHT team focussed their efforts. Therefore, the automation we delivered could drive the most significant benefit in that area.

From the outset, BHT Chief Technology Officer Phillip Neal stated:

“We want this project to be an example of Agile done well. We have allowed 12 weeks, so we must deliver within 12 weeks. If we have to shift anything, it will be the scope”.

 

However, the scope was not compromised, but instead, the project team considerably exceeded that which was agreed. Despite delivering more than planned, the solution also went live several days before the agreed milestone date (10 weeks into the project).

3d animation still for Kerv

We worked collaboratively, ticking off all of the specific deliverables we had committed to, but recognised that we could support Harrow above this and so worked to take additional ownership for some other areas such as operational readiness testing.

This project could easily not have run this smoothly. A key element to avoiding unforeseen issues at go-live was an absolute focus on operational readiness. We approached testing in 2 ways, bringing best practice to develop a generic test plan, but then identifying specific areas of risk through analysis of ticket data from the six months prior to this transition.

The project team identified three key areas in which the new organisation had to be prepared: access, capability and knowledge. There was a strong emphasis in the weeks approaching go-live on ensuring that all teams validated their ability to deliver services to customers. Through stringent operational readiness checks, any risks were highlighted, or mitigated, and the goal of readiness for day one was achieved, with the fall-back of a “minimum viable product” being greatly surpassed.

3d animation still for Kerv
Three people sitting on sofa in the office with laptop

Rather than simply define and build the Service Requests on behalf of the IT team, the project team invested the time to train the IT team to allow them to build their own within the system. The full credit for proposing this approach goes to the BHT Team; it was their suggestion, Kerv Consult and Unifii agilely accommodated the approach. Put into practice; instead of 15 key requests that the project was scoped to deliver, there were 85 built, tested and released, including those from the BHT IT team. The approach had the added benefit of ensuring that future service request items could be added at speed without the need for a project to update the system as the knowledge had been successfully transferred into the Trust.

ServiceNow Director of Transformation, Graham Curran, said: “The project team’s focus on collaboration and communication with users really helped make this such a successful implementation and showed the power of strong business change disciplines” which was an excellent endorsement of the project and the team.

“A great example of team work and agile delivery, this was a fantastic achievement in support of the Trust’s COVID response and has made a big difference in our ability to manage urgent requests from our colleagues across the Trust.”

Phillip Neal, Chief Technology Officer, Bucks Healthcare NHS Trust

3d animation still for Kerv
Result

The clearest benefit is that incidents are resolved, and service requests are fulfilled much faster now that the new solution is in place. This is evidenced by the robust SLAs which were developed and the reporting which was built to measure them. Customers of the IT service were also delighted by the new solution as the first batch of CSAT surveys received indicated.

At the final of the fortnightly Steering Board meetings Neelesh Patel, BHT Service Desk Manager, said:

“This has taken the service forward by years, I would recommend it to any organisation”.

 

One of the key benefits is that BHT’s customers are now using the self-service portal to raise tickets rather than have to engage by phone. Reducing the number of calls the service team have to manage each day frees up valuable time for ticket enquiries. The customer also sees a significant benefit as the self-service tickets are assigned directly to the appropriate team to resolve those items. The result is that not only do customers save considerable time on the phone, but their tickets are automatically assigned for resolution. The shift from manual to automated assigning of tickets is a significant factor in the speed to resolution of tickets for the customers.

Interestingly, this auto-routing introduced a brand-new challenge to the BHT teams as a very small percentage of tickets are mis-classified by the customers and so are auto-routed to the wrong team. These teams mentioned that in some cases they were unsure which other team to send these tickets to as previously they would have been triaged before arriving with them.

Fortunately, this is actually a positive for the overall service, as teams do not want incorrect tickets in their queues so act quickly. Those incorrectly classified tickets are viewed within minutes of being raised and quickly passed to the Service Desk or another team which ensures that the tickets do not stagnate or age.

3d animation still for Kerv
Three men around a laptop in an office
FUTURE

Building on the success of this project, BHT have requested that Kerv Consult and Unifii continue to support the Trust to improve their IT service by delivering against the transformation roadmap.

We have discussed a series of agile projects to implement further ITSM capabilities, wider business capabilities and ways of working as we continue to deliver against the longer-term transformation roadmap for the service.

BHT has clear plans to be the best IT team across the NHS and has already demonstrated significant progress towards that goal. Kerv Consult is genuinely excited to continue to be part of the team which will make that a reality.

3d animation still for Kerv
BENEFITS

The most obvious beneficial outcome is the move to IT being managed in-house. This successful transition underpinned by a new ITSM tool and a clear operating model outlining each team’s roles and responsibilities. Several ITIL processes are now being run by Harrow in a more streamlined, efficient manner – the impact of which is evident in the positive customer feedback received so far.

With the Service Desk being the front line of the newly formed organisation, Kerv Consult dedicated much time and effort to ensuring that this team had all the tools and skills required to hit the ground running. This hard work paid off at go-live when the team processed an increased number of tickets than received by their predecessor within the same period. This was likely due to the accessibility of the new service portal which, in itself, marks a notable improvement in the service offering. The team excelled, working cohesively with their new colleagues both internally and externally, and, contributing heavily to the favourable feedback received by customers.

3d animation still for Kerv
Four people sitting at desk smiling

We tried to quantify some of the tangible benefits, to demonstrate the value for Harrow. SLA performance was great but above that, within the first 2 weeks First Time Fix (FTF) was up at almost 60%, Major Incident rate was down, positive CSAT was 89.9% and there were 0 complaints. The MI and reporting evidenced a glowing success.

“The close collaboration between Harrow and Kerv Consult turned the vision into a reality and a successful one at that.”

Catherine Little, Head of Service Operations

Another key change post-transition has been the introduction of the self-service portal and 30% of incidents and 60% of requests are now raised this way. Tickets via email are now a thing of the past and this introduces significant benefits through more controlled ticket management system and the user visibility of real-time updates on their tickets through the portal. Requests raised using templated forms now go directly to the correct teams with automated tasks to speed up processing times. This has all contributed to a smoother service and a much-improved customer experience.

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The Outcome

We laid solid foundations for the Service Management team to ensure that these new ways of working could be maintained, as they move forward into 2021. Kerv Consult ensured this by not just designing but truly embedding the operational best practice which was embraced by Harrow. It was encouraging to see the enthusiasm with which the new ways of working were received and the positivity with which the team view the “new world”.

Cultural change is a key part for any transformation. There was a combination of strong top-down leadership from Harrow driving the user-first culture and bottom up Business Change from Kerv Consult. We were able to employ techniques such as engagement meetings, clear processes, user guide materials and robust knowledge to ensure the team could embrace the new ways of working but also know where to reference it when needed.

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woman on the phone
FUTURE

Kerv Consult has been requested to provide some further Service Operations consultancy beyond this project which will focus on continued operational excellence. Additionally, a detailed Service Improvement roadmap was developed by Kerv Consult over the course the project will help Harrow drive further integration of teams and increased automation across all services.

Harrow and Kerv Consult have developed a great working relationship over the past few months and we are now considered an extension of the team. We are very much looking forward to growing this partnership and helping Harrow achieve their goals across other projects as they move into the future.

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2022 Update

Harrow Council released their own video Case Study talking about the benefits of the transformation 18 months after the launch. This was not commissioned by Kerv Consult, but filmed in partnership with Version 1, the cloud partner during the project described above.

We are delighted to share this as it shows the lasting effects of the change, in the customer’s own words…

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3d animation still for Kerv 3d animation still for Kerv

Case Study

How Buckinghamshire NHS Trust sped up their service

Client

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS

Sector

Healthcare

Project Type

Project, Programme & Delivery Consultancy

Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

NHS Trust Buckinghamshire Healthcare Logo

Overview

A leading NHS Trust needed to migrate their IT service to a new platform and implement new ways of working to transform their delivery.

Buckinghamshire NHS Trust (BHT) IT team offer services to over 6,000 healthcare professionals supporting over 500,000 patients per year.

 

The BHT team have a clear mission to be the highest performing NHS Trust IT team across the UK and have started a transformation journey to achieve that goal.

CUSTOMER OVERVIEW

London Borough of Harrow Council (Harrow) provides services to approximately a quarter of a million citizens. The Harrow team had a clear goal; increasing autonomy over their services in order to strengthen and modernise delivery to their customers.

3d animation still for Kerv
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

As part of a wider programme of IT transformation initiatives in 2020, Harrow decided to transition to a SIAM delivery model and in-source a number of capabilities in order to have greater control of their services.

In Q2 2020, Harrow appointed a new IT Director, Ben Goward, who understood the benefit of transforming the Service. Ben set the team the challenge of implementing the new operating model before November 2020, when the outsourced agreement was due for renewal. This bold decision to transform within 6 months rather than extend the existing contract for a year, set the pace and context for delivery.

Kerv Consult was engaged to design some key elements of the service, such as processes to underpin the operating model, to ‘be the glue’ and ‘protect the service’, highlighting any gaps and to ensure that the elements of the complex new SIAM worked together. We were also selected to manage the transition of the most directly customer-facing services of End-User Computing (EUC) and the Service Desk.

It became clear early in the project scope that more extensive work was needed than originally foreseen. This additional work would be required to be completed within the remaining five months to achieve a successful go-live. As part of our analysis, we highlighted additional activities required to structure and stand up the services, both in-house and those with suppliers. This meant extensive planning and focus on the goal if it was to be achieved, however, by identifying these areas as early as possible, we ensured there was time to address gaps and protect the service.

3d animation still for Kerv
SOLUTION

The BHT team engaged Kerv Consult to deliver a further agile project, a three-month initiative to replace a legacy Support Works ITSM solution with ServiceNow as well as develop and embed new processes and ways of working. Unifii Ltd. were also engaged to deliver the technical elements of the ServiceNow solution and the project team consisted of Kerv Consult, BHT and Unifii working in unison.

A key focus of the project was developing the Incident Management and Service Request Fulfilment processes to be as transparent and efficient as possible as that is where the vast majority of the BHT team focussed their efforts. Therefore, the automation we delivered could drive the most significant benefit in that area.

From the outset, BHT Chief Technology Officer Phillip Neal stated:

“We want this project to be an example of Agile done well. We have allowed 12 weeks, so we must deliver within 12 weeks. If we have to shift anything, it will be the scope”.

 

However, the scope was not compromised, but instead, the project team considerably exceeded that which was agreed. Despite delivering more than planned, the solution also went live several days before the agreed milestone date (10 weeks into the project).

3d animation still for Kerv

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3d animation still for Kerv 3d animation still for Kerv

Case Study

How Buckinghamshire NHS Trust sped up their service

Client

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS

Sector

Healthcare

Project Type

Project, Programme & Delivery Consultancy

Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

NHS Trust Buckinghamshire Healthcare Logo

Overview

A leading NHS Trust needed to migrate their IT service to a new platform and implement new ways of working to transform their delivery.

Buckinghamshire NHS Trust (BHT) IT team offer services to over 6,000 healthcare professionals supporting over 500,000 patients per year.

 

The BHT team have a clear mission to be the highest performing NHS Trust IT team across the UK and have started a transformation journey to achieve that goal.

CUSTOMER OVERVIEW

London Borough of Harrow Council (Harrow) provides services to approximately a quarter of a million citizens. The Harrow team had a clear goal; increasing autonomy over their services in order to strengthen and modernise delivery to their customers.

3d animation still for Kerv
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

As part of a wider programme of IT transformation initiatives in 2020, Harrow decided to transition to a SIAM delivery model and in-source a number of capabilities in order to have greater control of their services.

In Q2 2020, Harrow appointed a new IT Director, Ben Goward, who understood the benefit of transforming the Service. Ben set the team the challenge of implementing the new operating model before November 2020, when the outsourced agreement was due for renewal. This bold decision to transform within 6 months rather than extend the existing contract for a year, set the pace and context for delivery.

Kerv Consult was engaged to design some key elements of the service, such as processes to underpin the operating model, to ‘be the glue’ and ‘protect the service’, highlighting any gaps and to ensure that the elements of the complex new SIAM worked together. We were also selected to manage the transition of the most directly customer-facing services of End-User Computing (EUC) and the Service Desk.

It became clear early in the project scope that more extensive work was needed than originally foreseen. This additional work would be required to be completed within the remaining five months to achieve a successful go-live. As part of our analysis, we highlighted additional activities required to structure and stand up the services, both in-house and those with suppliers. This meant extensive planning and focus on the goal if it was to be achieved, however, by identifying these areas as early as possible, we ensured there was time to address gaps and protect the service.

3d animation still for Kerv
Result

“We recently engaged with Kerv Consult to deliver Business Readiness for a FinTech customer our ours who was preparing for a large ServiceNow go-live. Kerv Consult mobilised at short notice, worked with us to agree a clear list of 60 business change and training deliverables to ensure that thecustomer was trained and ready for their upcoming release. The Kerv Consult team delivered everything to a great standard of quality, always ahead of schedule (despite an aggressive 6 week timescale) and with professionalism throughout.

We made the decision to engage with Kerv Consult due to our history, where they delivered a Complex Transformation Programme and associated Business Change on behalf of another customer of ours in the Public Services Sector. Once again we were delighted with the results that they delivered and would highly recommend them.”

Mike Glock, Unifii Managing Director

We would like to thank Unifii for the incredible job that they did to develop the ServiceNow solution for LSEG and also for providing whatever input we needed to ensure that the delivery was as smooth as possible.

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Worth Digital

is now part of Kerv

In a continued effort to ensure we offer our customers the very best in knowledge and skills, Kerv has acquired Worth Digital.