Critical Review: Operations, Logistics, Supply Chain in NHS (2024)

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the National Health Service (NHS) operations, logistics, and supply chain management. It begins with an introduction to the core concepts of operations, logistics, and supply chain, emphasizing their importance in healthcare. The report then identifies two critical areas for effective management: service development and process, and managing quality. It further reviews relevant operation, logistics, and supply chain management theories, including Six Sigma, Deming's theory of Total Quality Management (TQM), and Crosby's theory, discussing their application and relevance to the NHS. The analysis includes a discussion of issues within the NHS, such as quality of service, lack of skilled workers, low-quality medicines, inadequate infrastructure, and insufficient staffing, supported by examples. The report concludes with recommendations for improvement, aiming to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the NHS's operations and supply chain to better serve the public. The information is gathered from various sources including books, journals, and the internet.

Understanding
Operations, Logistics and
Supply Chain
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Two important areas in managing operations, logistics and supply chain .................................1
Critical review of relevant Operation, Logistics and Supply Chain Management theories........2
Analytical discussion with relevant and similar examples.........................................................4
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Operation management can be simply defined as the process of maintaining the whole
activities with in an organisation. Every operations are managed effectively in enterprise so that
best outcome can be obtained from that. On the other supply chain management and logistics is
concerned with the administration of flow of goods and services (Ubeda, Arcelus and Faulin,
2011). This includes storage and movement of raw materials or finished products from one point
to another. The present report is based on the operational management of NHS. In this project,
various theories of operation, Logistics and Supply Chain Management are explained so that
company understand its importance and focus on its maintenance. National Health Service
(NHS) is a healthcare system which is publicly funded. It was formed in the year of 1948 and its
headquarter is located at London. It provides majority of health care in England such as primary
care, long term healthcare, in – patient care, dentistry and ophthalmology. In addition this, it also
offers various services like eye tests, prescriptions, dental care, aspects of ling term check ups,
etc. in very less charges as compared to the private firms. In fact, it provides most of the services
to the resident of UK at free of cost. In order to offer proper services or facilities to common
people, NHS should maintain their supply chain management and logistics in proper way. All the
activities or operations should be arranged and maintained appropriately so that no conflicts
would raise in future and heath and safety at care setting is preserved effectively.
Two important areas in managing operations, logistics and supply chain
The two main areas that needs to be managed appropriately are following :
Service development and process : NHS ought to focus on the development of services and
processes provide by them to patients. By keeping this in consideration, corporation should offer
best possible services to the care users so that their disease or any kind of problems can be
removed in minimum period of time (Tako and Robinson, 2012). The venture should recruit
skilled as well as experienced health professionals or doctors as well as associates like ward boy,
nursers, compounder, etc. for taking care of patients. This is very important for gaining the trust
of public as most of the people think that in government hospitals proper care and services are
not provided in relation to private organisations. Due to this, very less number of people are
taking facilities of NHS.
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Managing quality : While providing services, quality is very essential factor that needs to be
consider. If low or poor quality services are supplied then an individual may loose its life. As life
is priceless, government should provide best quality services to their civilians. Quality should
also be retained in term of medicines as well. Low quality of medicinal drug can affect the health
of a person very badly or sometimes people suffering from severe disease do not recover
immediately due to taking worst quality medicines. Therefore, it is very important for NHS to
provide better or best quality of services as well as medical facilities to citizens of its country.
Critical review of relevant Operation, Logistics and Supply Chain Management theories
As per the view point of Fugate, Mentzer and Stank (2010), operation management is
concerned with controlling the manufacturing process and operations of business in an efficient
manner. Six sigma is one of the important theory of modern operations management. This is an
approach that emphasises on quality. This was developed by an American company known as
Motorola in the year of 1986. in this era, this is a model of managing quality and are utilised in
business and industrial sector. It consist of set of methods for improving the quality of processes.
As there is a demand of high quality in NHS, this theory is proved to be very beneficial. There
are common five steps that is followed in this model are define, measure, analyse, improve and
control. Gold and Seuring (2011) says that in first step those processes needs to be focussed
which are faulty in nature. This can be decided via doing analysis of need and goals of firm. By
this way, issues, aims and deliverables for the project are defined. In second step, a special team
should be build up for measuring or analysing the initial actions of the process. Such statistical
measures formulate a list of expected inputs that might cause problems and assists the team in
understanding the process of benchmark performance. In third step, members of team evaluates
the process by separating each input or the possible reason for the failure and testing it as the root
of the issue. Thus, by this analysation, group members determines the reason for process error
(What is Lean Six Sigma?, 2017). And from the same time, they start working in order to
improve the performance of system. In last step, team adds controls to the process for ensuring
that it would not regress and become ineffectual once again.
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(Source : What is Lean Six Sigma?, 2017)
On the other hand, Govindan and et. al. (2012) stated that Deming's theory is one of the
concepts provided by TQM or total quality management. This philosophy is completely based on
14 points of management which given by famous theorist. Scholars said that quality of an
organisation is equal to the performance attempts over the entire cost. They had given four main
points that is used in regular improvement. These are listed below :
System appreciation : As per this, venture requires to understand the methods in which it
might processed and also learn working of whole system.
Variation knowledge : This states the estimation of variation that emerges and creates
fluctuations.
Knowledge theory : This gives interpretation about particular term or topic.
Psychology knowledge : This is concerned with learning about the behaviour of human beings.
Therefore, it has been examined that after interpreting various types of knowledges
linked with an enterprise, workers can become capable of maintaining the quality of their work.
Besides this, there are some main elements of this theory which is discussed below :
a). Creating stability of goals
b). Utilising the new concepts
c). Regulating dependence on aggregate examinations
d). Awards should be given to any firm on the basis of pricing
e). Continuous improvement and service enhancement can be created by motivating employees
f). Removing fear from the corporation
g). Eradicating quantity based work aims and objectives
h). It should be sure that each and every hired workers are appropriately trained
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Illustration 1: What is Lean Six Sigma?

Montreuil (2011) said that Crosby's theory is another approach given by Philips Crosby.
He also emphasises on the quality of goods and services provided by several companies. As per
him, managerial groups of a venture requires to spend their important time as well as funds on
maintaining their quality in order to attain the success. The scholars has provided four major
components so that this technique can be better understand. Some primary steps given by Philip
Crosby for developing the company are mentioned below :
1). Achieving overall commitment from managerial team
2). Formulation of quality improvement group
3). Creation of matrix for every quality enhancement task
4). Determining the costing of quality and highlighting the method of impoverishing
5). Superiors should also be trained in effective manner
6). Inspiring personnels towards eliminating issues that impact on their success
7). Trying to make of zero defects enterprise
8). Making sure that both employees and managers have understand the stages of quality
improvement
9). Formulating an incentives activities for work force in order to promote them
10). Creating a council for evaluating quality and conducting meetings regularly
11). Each and every steps should be continued and followed
Analytical discussion with relevant and similar examples
It has been observed that there are several issues emerging in the NHS. Some of the
issues are following :
Quality regarding service offered : The services which are provide to citizens of UK are
not of good quality. Due to this different problems are generated in the nation. Infectious and
communicable diseases are spreading in the country and this is why number of deaths are
recorded in previous year. For example, there were seen an increment in the overall mortality
rate due to respiratory diseases and injuries in Wales (El-Sayed, Afia and El-Kharbotly, 2010).
Therefore, NHS must have to improve the quality of services so this death rate can be controlled
in proper manner by offering the public more and more best quality facilities or services.
Lack of skilled workers : It has also been noticed that most of the people who are
working in NHS are interns who are appointed for gaining experiences. So, in their initial days of
recruitment, they do not any thing. They even do not know to inject any patient. So, how could
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they control and take care of patients. Some of the doctors also do not have good knowledge and
due to this, an adverse effects are seen in the conditions of patients. Thus, the organisation
should hire skilled employees who can give proper treatment to the customers. After that proper
training is also provided to the newly recruited workers so that they can acquire plenty of
knowledge from that and use this in different cases.
Low quality medicines : Besides the above defects, medicines provided by this venture is
also not of good quality. Due to this, people are suffering from various types of problems. No
improvement are seen in the users who are admitted from long time (Fernie and Sparks, 2014).
Therefore, NHS need to purchase good quality medicines or drugs in order to offer quality
services to their consumers.
Absence of adequate infrastructure : Several cases are seen where number of patients
are quite high but the quantity of beds, clothes, and many essentials things are less in care home.
Due to this reason, people who need treatment in emergency are not getting the same and suffers
from severe issues. Even numerous of death are reported only due to that. In order to give right
care and treatment to the civilians of UK, government need to arrange proper infrastructures so
that every one receives the health services in the case of any emergency or requirement.
Less number of workers : Work forces are not present in adequate quantities. The
number of users are too large but there has been seen absence of appropriate number of
personnels. Due to this , single nurse or compounder is giving very less time to an individual and
because of this, no one is getting proper care (Dekker, Bloemhof and Mallidis, 2012). In order to
remove this issue, NHS have to hire workers in bulk so that they can offer great care to each and
every patient.
The data gathered regarding the issues of NHS and the theories of quality as well as
operation management are by taking use of three sources which are described below :
Books & Journals : The information in context of NHS are collected by taking help of
several books and journals. Books are great source of aggregating any kind of information. A
plenty of knowledge are present about different topics and the work of accumulation of authentic
information in context of theme or topic become very easy task.
Internet : This is considered as the clusters of information as huge amount of data is
present on the network or cloud which can be accessed by any one and any time. Most of the
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information regarding NHS like death rates of people in United Kingdom are taken from the
internet as more time would be consumed while searching the same in books.
Experts advice : The knowledge about the different theories of operation and quality
management are taken from various experts and scholars as they have good idea about all these
philosophies. For resolving the issues present in NHS , they also have recommanded some
solutions which are discussed in this assignment. In addition to this, the some of the above listed
issues are also solved by applying different concepts such as six sigma theory, total quality
management theories (Deming's theory, Crosby's theory) as suggested by philosophers.
Recommendation
As NHS are facing several types of problems in terms of quality and supplying of
services, they should take proper steps in order to remove or minimise them. They should hire
large number of workers so that each and every patients present in the care settings are provided
equal care and services. In addition to this, venture should not do discrimination with users on
the basis of age, sex, colour, caste, race, regions, etc. Every customers should be seen from equal
eyes and no special favours should be given to relatives and family members of workers or
professionals. As the doctors as well as nurses are not possessing good skills, organisation needs
to provide them special training and development programmes so that they get experiences from
this and become able to give proper treatments to the care users. Besides this, the quality of
medicines that is being offered to citizens are also not good. That is why no improvement is seen
in most of patients who are taking long terms treatments. Therefore, cited firm needs to improve
the quality of their medical drugs so that people get instant relief and get healthy easily in
minimum period of time. Government requires to arrange adequate amount or quantity of
infrastructure such as beds, clothes, food items, medicines, etc. as the number of customers are
high and due to absence of these facilities, they are not getting the appropriate care and
treatments. This is giving a bad impact on the image of venture and they are losing the trust of
their potential users which is not good. Therefore, this is very important to do proper
arrangement of such things so that people do not face any kind of issues while taking their
treatments. In order to maintain the quality within company, NHS should take given steps as
presented by Six sigma approach :
1). All the faulty processes requires to focused by the quality management team of enterprise.
This can be identified by examining the actual requirements as well as the objectives of venture.
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2). After this, they can built special group for evaluating the initial performance of the process.
Here a list of activities such be formed that are creating issues.
3). In third step, team members needs to analyse the process by isolating each input or the
realizable reason for the failure and investigating it as the root of the issue. Hence, by this
evaluation, group members recognise the reason for process error.
4). After that, they start their work in order to better the performance of system.
5). In last step, team adds controls to the process for insuring that it would not regress and
become ineffectual once again.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it can be summarised that operation, logistics or supply
chain management is very important in each and every enterprise. NHS should also do the proper
management of these sectors in order to provide appropriate health and care services to the
civilians of United Kingdom. For doing the same, some of the theories of operation and total
quality management like Six sigma theory and Deming's theory, etc. are explained respectively.
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REFERENCES
Books & journals
Dekker, R., Bloemhof, J. and Mallidis, I., 2012. Operations Research for green logistics–An
overview of aspects, issues, contributions and challenges. European Journal of
Operational Research. 219(3). pp.671-679.
El-Sayed, M., Afia, N. and El-Kharbotly, A., 2010. A stochastic model for forward–reverse
logistics network design under risk. Computers & Industrial Engineering. 58(3).
pp.423-431.
Fernie, J. and Sparks, L., 2014. Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new
challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers.
Fugate, B. S., Mentzer, J. T. and Stank, T. P., 2010. Logistics performance: efficiency,
effectiveness, and differentiation. Journal of Business Logistics. 31(1). pp.43-62.
Gold, S. and Seuring, S., 2011. Supply chain and logistics issues of bio-energy production.
Journal of Cleaner Production. 19(1). pp.32-42.
Govindan, K. and et. al., 2012. Analysis of third party reverse logistics provider using
interpretive structural modeling. International Journal of Production Economics.
140(1). pp.204-211.
Montreuil, B., 2011. Toward a Physical Internet: meeting the global logistics sustainability grand
challenge. Logistics Research. 3(2-3). pp.71-87.
Pishvaee, M. S., Farahani, R. Z. and Dullaert, W., 2010. A memetic algorithm for bi-objective
integrated forward/reverse logistics network design. Computers & operations research.
37(6). pp.1100-1112.
Prajogo, D. and Olhager, J., 2012. Supply chain integration and performance: The effects of
long-term relationships, information technology and sharing, and logistics integration.
International Journal of Production Economics. 135(1). pp.514-522.
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Sheu, J. B., 2010. Dynamic relief-demand management for emergency logistics operations under
large-scale disasters. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation
Review. 46(1). pp.1-17.
Tako, A. A. and Robinson, S., 2012. The application of discrete event simulation and system
dynamics in the logistics and supply chain context. Decision support systems. 52(4).
pp.802-815.
Ubeda, S., Arcelus, F. J. and Faulin, J., 2011. Green logistics at Eroski: A case study.
International Journal of Production Economics. 131(1). pp.44-51.
Online
What is Lean Six Sigma?. 2017. [Online]. Available through :
<https://goleansixsigma.com/what-is-lean-six-sigma/>.
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