SWOT Analysis of Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

This report provides a comprehensive SWOT analysis of Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, highlighting its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It discusses the company's broad range of services, strong partnerships, pressures faced, lack of agility, and opportunities for investment and system leadership. Recommendations are provided to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses.

Healthcare Environment

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The assessment is prepared on Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust which is
well popular NHS Foundation Trusts to provide clinical and other care services. It is required to
maintain safe and satisfying environment so to make the patients feel supporting, fresh and
healthier. Culture of safety is seen as paramount wherein all managers, administrators,
employees, leaders and ancillary staff posses responsibility to coordinate with each other for
performing with sense of accountability, involvement, professionalism and effectiveness.
The assessment is all about SWOT analysis report on Guys and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust. It includes its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. At last, the
Foundation Trust is recommended with strategies to minimise threats/ weaknesses as well as
maximise opportunities/strengths.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...............................................................................................................
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
About the company......................................................................................................................1
SWOT Analysis...........................................................................................................................2
Discussion....................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Healthcare refers to maintenance along with improvement of health of people through
mechanisms of prevention, recovery, diagnosis, cure and treatment of any illness, injury or other
impairments in people (Ahmed and Rajput, 2020). With field of medical services, healthcare
environment is considered as major concern. It is a totality of safe, satisfying along with
empowering which serves for making users feeling healthier. The environment includes proven
track record about devising relevant models and systems for healthcare settings which generates
true predictive analytics. Clean as well as welcoming surroundings in healthcare companies is
significant as it engenders feelings of well being as well as generates trust among people that are
unwell or anxious. For analysing healthcare environment, Guys and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust is selected. It is largest NHS Foundation Trusts within London, UK. The
company is an integrated healthcare entity which provides diverse range of services such as
specialist for adult and children, emergency, local community and elective.
The assessment covers key research findings on each section of SWOT Analysis and
recommendations to company on the basis of findings and analysis so that the Foundation Trust
can maximise opportunities/ strengths as well as minimise weaknesses/threats.
MAIN BODY
About the company
Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is well recognised subsidiary of NHS
England. The mission of the trust is to provide world standards clinical care, research and
education which improvises health of local citizens and global population. The values of the
healthcare system are respecting others, act with integrity, put patients first, striving for being
best and taking pride in whatever it performs (Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
2020). It is among largest healthcare trusts within the nation that have nearby 18050 employees,
25650 foundation trust members, 2.6 million patients contacts each year as well as an annual
turnover of around £1.7 billion. The organisation was first opened as NHS Trust with
involvement of University Hospital Lewisham. Later, in the year 1993, Lewisham became an
individual or independent company and then joined Guy's and St Thomas together. The trust
have partnership with various Healthcare setting, academic institutions and so on within and
outside of London, UK. It provides its services from numerous locations which are easily
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accessible from London or surroundings of Southern England. At same time, it also delivers
local services in people's home, children and leisure centres, GP practices, nursing homes, etc. it
has approx 1000 inpatient beds out of which 200 are for children of London. Moreover, there are
8 intensive care beds, 236 dental chairs, 44 theatres across two acute sites, 32 chemotherapy
chairs together with a dedicated amputee rehabilitation units.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis is a model which aids to evaluate competitive position together with
developing strategic planning (Al Khamisi, Khan and Munive-Hernandez, 2019). In an
organisation, SWOT analysis is used as a guide for facilitating data driven look, realistic and fact
based about strengths and opportunities addition to weaknesses and threats. In context to Guys
and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, comprehensive SWOT analysis is produced underneath:
Strengths:
 Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust provides broad range of services
for fulfilling needs of service users
(Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust. 2020).
 For the purpose of delivering
commercial services to local and global
population, the trust have strong
partnership with multiple
organisations in the field.
 The trust have strong reputation in
market as provider of safe,
empowering, high quality, effective
care as well as good outcomes in
National patients surveys addition to
Friends and Family Tests (Chowdhury
and et.al., 2018).
 Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust are financially sound entity as it
Weaknesses:
 Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust have recognised requirement of
speed up decision making as well as
improvements in aspects it prioritise
investment because of lack of agility.
 The Trust is distinguished as high
quality provider that represents that it
incurs higher costs for various
services.
 The organisation lacks information
and IT to connect across healthcare as
well as to develop records in electronic
manner.
 Despite of huge improvements within
performances, the company is facing
continued variation across certain
services (Grainger, Stevens and
Humphreys, 2019).
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achieves extraordinary operational
performances that are continually
enhancing.
 The hospital sites of the healthcare
entity are located at close places to
major transport hubs. At same time, its
community sites are nearby to homes of
population with outreach services
across London.
 The rising demand addition to
treatment costs are putting huge
pressures of Guys and St Thomas’
NHS Foundation Trust that is
impacting negatively on its revenue
making (Guys and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust. 2020).
Opportunities:
 Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust have desires for growing its
services that can be done through
further strengthening portfolio of
services for attaining maximum
financial addition to clinical
efficiencies (Guys and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust. 2020).
 The Trust have opportunity for
realising benefits of its focussed
investment especially in
cardiovascular, cancer, children and
adult facilities.
 The organisation can expand its
productivity by maximising usage of
current assets in flexible manner
(Hassan, 2018).
 It have diverse opportunity of actively
leading together with contribution for
workings so to integrate pathways for
the purpose of providing effective care.
Threats:
 The Trust operates activities with
commissioners for managing demand.
However, risks or limited
affordability of commissioners for its
activities is a great threat for it.
 Unsuccessful tendering or bids are
another threat of Guys and St Thomas’
NHS Foundation Trust which leads to
loss in income as well as delivering
essential services (Guys and St
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. 2020).
 The Trust fails to respond fastly
towards challenges it faces in dynamic
macro environment.
 Growth and demand predictions of the
healthcare company are based on
scenarios which fails to materialise and
results in threatening its
sustainability (Hunter, 2016).
 There are misalignment of timelines
which creates unplanned emergency
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 Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust can continue to lead critical
thinking for responding challenging
external environment through system
leadership.
flows that puts huge force of efficiency
of Guys and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust.
Discussion
Strengths:
Broad range of services: To respond towards local and global healthcare needs as well
as expanding local population, Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust have developed and
provide wider range of services related to health and non health. The company provides diverse
portfolio of clinical services which comprises specialist services for children and adults from
wide catchment area, emergency care for citizens belonging from across South London, local
services with integrated community addition to hospital services for local residents and families.
Other than clinical services, The Trust provides essential non clinical services such as capital,
facilities along with estates services (Kanamori, Weber and Rutala, 2020). All these services of
Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust have been successfully commercialised and are
provided for more than 900 community properties. The broad categories of services act as
advantages for the Trust as they assist in maintaining health, managing or preventing disease,
attaining equity for all populations and reducing unnecessary disabilities addition to deaths.
Strong partnership: For healthcare providers, strong partnerships are related to
connecting dots to access and leverage diverse advantages of scale which streamlines processes,
improves patients care, reduces costs and leads to innovation. In case with Guys and St Thomas’
NHS Foundation Trust, it work in partnership with multiple institutions and establishments for
delivering commercial and healthcare services to wider population. They key partnerships of the
Foundation Trust are King’s Health Partners, our Academic Health Sciences Centre and many
more with whom it closely work on range of longer term transformational programmes.
Additionally, the unit is part of various regional, local as well as national clinical networks which
supports its practices. Local and overseas partners benefits the enterprise for diversifying its
income streams along with support for being operationally sustainable business to provide
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exceptional care to patients (Kenters and et.al., 2018). It is represented on wellbeing and health
boards which assist in defining strategic directions for care services locally.
Weaknesses:
Putting huge pressures: Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is making all
possible actions for providing care and treatment to all types of illness, injuries or diseases for
long term duration. In this context, local residents and international populations are demanding
more about its services and care that puts huge pressure on it to work effectively for meeting all
demands. When the company performs to met demands about unpredicted and unimagined
diseases then the treatment cost increases which reduces its reserves to arrange equipments, tools
and other essentials (Kumar and et.al., 2017). Reduction in reserves or to manage the financial
reserves, the administration feel huge pressurised that is its one of weaknesses. It creates huge
complexity for the trust to manage expensive treatment options and when demanded care are not
provided then it impacts of its image that negatively impacts of revenue generation.
Lack of agility: In a business, agility is termed to rapid, ongoing addition to systematic
adaptation as well as entrepreneurial innovation that is directed by gaining or maintaining
competitive benefits. However, in contest to Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, the
managers have recognised a requirement of rapid decision making as well as making necessary
improvements within the manner they prioritise investment. The Trust faces the issue of not
treating any change as priority, devising wrong expectations, not becoming part of external
environmental changes and lacking understandings that is due to lack of agility that is its major
weakness (Muzslay and et.al., 2017). Because of this, senior management of Guys and St
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust often struggles with aspects to empower less experiences
manpower, fostering right combination of independence as well as makes oversight bit of
balancing act. Moreover, one of big risks associated with limited agility is fear, ego along with
fear to take leads in the field it operates.
Opportunities:
Realising benefits of its focussed investment: It is opportunity for a company to realise
advantages of its emphasis investment by attaining maximum from the returns. In relevance to
Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, it is an opportunity to realise advantaged of
various investments especially in services for children and patients requiring care for cancer and
cardiovascular. It have an opportunity to provide huge services within these segments so that
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premature deaths are reduced and care about health is promoted among population (Palumbo,
2017). In UK, there are around 11759000 children under age of 16 among which nearby 78%
children requires care services. So it is opportunity for Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust to invest in the essentials of such services in order to gain maximum benefits.
System leadership: Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is already offering
numerous clinical services across its all networks of care and is working on its extension. It has
opportunity to continue to lead thinking through adopting system leadership that involves set of
capacities, competences and skills which managers or administrators can utilise for catalysts,
enabling addition to supporting procedures associated to system level change. With this, the trust
can combine collaborative leadership, system insights along with coalition building for
mobilising innovation together with actions within large and decentralised networks. It will assist
the organisation to respond towards challenging, dynamic and other related factors of external
environment through offering innovative solutions to others (Ramadevi and et.al., 2016). With
this opportunity, the company will be able to lead along with drive changes at all levels of
operations and network to actualise goals of continuous reforms. Moreover, within healthcare
sector, leadership is spread across clinical workforces by managing peculiar challenges.
Threats:
Threatening sustainability: Sustainability is a complex concept that emphases towards
meeting requirements of present population without compromising potentials of future
generation for meeting necessities. It encourages organisations to frame decisions related to
environmental, cultural, social and human influences for long term. In context to Guys and St
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, its growth, expansion along with demand assumptions are
dependent on predictions and scenarios that makes the business unable to materialise which
creates treats to its sustainability. Moreover, the commissioning intentions of the Foundation
Trust are not realised which is one of threat to the business in healthcare industry. At same time,
the major threats to sustainable development for the company includes costs and transparency,
delivery system transformation, interoperability, inaccessible care points, healthcare policies and
holistic individual health (Rawlinson, Ciric and Cloutman-Green, 2019). It impacts on wide
range of issues from commitment of healthcare professionals and practitioners to societal well
being.
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Unsuccessful tendering or bids: All healthcare companies involves in tenders or bids. It
is an invitation to bid for any project or working. At same time, tender includes a process in
which government along with financial institutions invites bids for big projects which are
necessary to be submitted within determined deadline. In bids or tenders, huge money is invested
and there are probability of huge losses. It is one of threat for Guys and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust when unsuccessful bids occurs as it causes huge loss of care services addition
to income of company. Moreover, tender specifications that needs the Foundation Trust to
deliver services at level that is below its existing costs risk generally erodes quality of care
services and delivery (Smolen and et.al., 2019). When the quality of care and services erodes that
it impacts negatively on competitive tendering of the entity which is considered as major threat
for the organisation as it hampers its brand image along with trust that customers have on it.
CONCLUSION
From the presented information, it have been concluded that healthcare environment is
the surrounding of companies that are involved in practising and providing health related
services for general public. It is a major concern of medical organisation and are required to be
taken seriously when its is concerned with society's health. SWOT Analysis helps in assessment
of internal and external elements associated with business. A healthcare company have strengths
of broad range of services, strong partnership, strong reputation,financially sound business and
located at close places. The same company have weaknesses of lack of agility, higher costs, lacks
information and IT, facing continued variation and putting huge pressures. Opportunities that are
available with a Foundation Trust are to strengthening portfolio of services, realising benefits of
its focussed investment, expand its productivity integrate pathway and system leadership.
Threats includes risks or limited affordability of commissioners, Unsuccessful tendering or bids,
fails to respond fastly, threatening its sustainability and huge force of efficiency. Various
recommendations are suggested to the entity for minimising weaknesses and threats along with
maximising opportunities and strengths.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to maximise strengths/opportunities and minimise weaknesses/threats, Guys and
St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is recommended followings:
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 To maximise the strength of strong partnerships, Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust is recommended to provide required informations and details about all its services
and necessary changes in decision making. With this, the Foundation Trust will be able to
create elite partnerships that is made up of population and companies that views each
other as essential equals together with shows mutual respect for differences among each
other.
 For minimising weakness of Information and IT, it is recommended to Guys and St
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust that it should prefer and use digital and social media
platforms to develop and improvise on connectivity across entire health addition to social
care. Also, the Foundation trust should install software such as Microsoft Excel and
others to generate Electronic Health record as these will make activities easy to improve
connectivity. Furthermore, Foundation Trust must chose its platform with care as well as
provide education or training to its employees in different departments so that they easily
record health related transactions in systematic and understandable format.
 For the purpose of maximising opportunity of further strengthening its service portfolio,
Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust should improve its competitive positioning,
prioritise focus of service, identify strong and weak services so to clarify allocation of
resources, foster communication with collaboration and maximise investments in care
service. All these will help the entity to manage and fortify its portfolio of services
effectively.
 In order to minimise threat that of competitive tendering that is associated to Guys and St
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, it is recommended to plan ahead and hire professionals
that are expert in bidding and tendering. The professionals will set strategies before and
after the tender so that all the inappropriate results are managed with effective services so
to cover up the losses of financial resources and care services. Also, the company must
only involve in those tenders that have high probability of success in future as to foster
sustainability for future generations.
 For continuing its operations with strength of location near to people that needs its
services, it is recommended to Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust that it should
promote its access to rural areas so that they become aware about the clinical and non
clinical facilities that attracts as well as meet demand of larger population. Whenever the
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Foundation Trust will plan to open any of its branch, it must consider available
transportation for people so that they can access the requirements. Also, the organisation
must involve with small institutions so to provide education and training to interested
population for healthcare that are unable to get admission in recognised or top health
related institutions.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ahmed, S. M. and Rajput, A., 2020. Threats to patients’ privacy in smart healthcare
environment. In Innovation in Health Informatics (pp. 375-393). Academic Press.
Al Khamisi, Y. N., Khan, M. K. and Munive-Hernandez, J. E., 2019. Knowledge-based lean Six
Sigma system for enhancing quality management performance in healthcare
environment. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma.
Chowdhury, D. and et.al., 2018. Transfer of dry surface biofilm in the healthcare environment:
the role of healthcare workers' hands as vehicles. Journal of Hospital Infection. 100(3).
pp.e85-e90.
Grainger, R. J., Stevens, N. T. and Humphreys, H., 2019. Approaches to the detection of
Clostridioides difficile in the healthcare environment. Journal of Hospital Infection.
103(4). pp.375-381.
Hassan, I., 2018. Avoiding medication errors through effective communication in healthcare
environment. Movement, Health & Exercise. 7(1). pp.113-126.
Hunter, L. A., 2016. Debriefing and feedback in the current healthcare environment. The Journal
of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing. 30(3). pp.174-178.
Kanamori, H., Weber, D. J. and Rutala, W. A., 2020. The role of the healthcare surface
environment in SARS-CoV-2 transmission and potential control measures. Clinical
Infectious Diseases.
Kenters, N. and et.al., 2018. An international survey of cleaning and disinfection practices in the
healthcare environment. Journal of Hospital Infection. 100(2). pp.236-241.
Kumar, T. and et.al., 2017, May. Identity privacy preserving biometric based authentication
scheme for naked healthcare environment. In 2017 IEEE international conference on
communications (ICC)(pp. 1-7). IEEE.
Muzslay, M. and et.al., 2017. ESBL-producing Gram-negative organisms in the healthcare
environment as a source of genetic material for resistance in human infections. Journal
of Hospital Infection. 95(1). pp.59-64.
Palumbo, R., 2017. The bright side and the dark side of patient empowerment: Co-creation and
co-destruction of value in the healthcare environment. Springer.
Ramadevi, D. and et.al., 2016. Human resource management in a healthcare environment:
Framework and case study. Industrial and Commercial Training.
Rawlinson, S., Ciric, L. and Cloutman-Green, E., 2019. How to carry out microbiological
sampling of healthcare environment surfaces? A review of current evidence. Journal of
Hospital Infection. 103(4). pp.363-374.
Smolen, J. S. and et.al., 2019. Era of biosimilars in rheumatology: reshaping the healthcare
environment. RMD open. 5(1). p.e000900.
Online:
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