This healthcare case study describes a strategy we developed to enable the Health Service Executive to reorganise occupational therapy services in Galway in line with the:

• National Health Strategy, ‘Quality & Fairness – A Health System for You’;
• Primary Care Strategy, ‘Primary Care – New Direction’; and
• The ‘Professional Therapists’ Report by Peter Bacon.

Solution

We were given a mandate to get more from less, and we focused on finding ways of ensuring that existing services, staff and budgets were delivering all they could, rather than on simply adding more resources without parallel changes in work practices.

We reviewed the service under eight headings:

• Macro Environment
• Eligibility and Accessibility
• Functioning of the Current Service
• Performance: Services, Staff and Budgets
• Management
• ICT
• Procurement
• Performance Indicators

Outcome

Our strategy and plan included detailed, practical measures to slash waiting lists by putting the principle of ‘today’s work today’ at the centre of service planning. The strategy was adopted for action by HSE West in Galway.