Nightingale Hospital's COVID Response: A Project Management Case Study

This case study examines the challenges faced by the Nightingale Hospital in Manchester during the COVID-19 pandemic. Established as a temporary hospital to handle the surge in patients, the hospital grappled with issues such as nursing shortages and limited bed availability. The report explores the complexities of the hospital's operations and evaluates the potential of project management tools like stakeholder analysis, critical path method, work breakdown structure, and various methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, Prince2) in identifying and addressing these challenges. The case study highlights the importance of strategic planning and resource allocation in crisis management within healthcare settings, emphasizing the need for effective project management techniques to ensure optimal patient care and operational efficiency. Desklib provides similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

Case Study

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Contents

Introduction
In the year 2020, when global pandemic has reached almost every country, UK
government was taking various crucial steps so that they can handle the COVID situation in a
better manner. For the same situation company has developed a temporary hospital which
they named Nightingale Hospital which was started in the Manchester City. As it is a very
sensitive case, so the government has tried its best and follow all the strategical approaches to
serve the customers in the best possible (Kumar, Kumar, and Pandey, 2020). But still there
are some issues which have been observed during this time period and these were related to
the shortage of nurses, availability of limited bed for the covid patients. Hospital was
constructed only for those patients who were very critical, so if any other people want to test
their corona, then they were not allowed to enter this hospital. This is because of the very less
facilities which was offering by the hospital to the people. This given repost is about all the
complexities which Nightingale Hospital has confronted in its operation during pandemic
period. And which project management tools could be helpful in identifying these
complications in the hospital.
Main Body
In one of article which was given by Siva Anandaciva, other than England there are so
many other countries which are taking necessary initiative too solve the situation of COVID
19 and for the treatment of the patients. As there were so many private hospitals which not
providing the required facilities to the corona infected patients and asking for very high fees
which is barely affordable by any normal person. The Nightingale Hospitals which were
established was for the fulfilment of different mottos such as giving the door-to-door services
to the people, in order to keep them safe from the virus infection. Apart from this one major
hospital has opened for providing the overall health care services to the patients who were
admitted there (AM, and Muhammad, 2022). The set up of these hospitals has been situated
in different locations and all of this organisation has been started for the purpose of treating
the covid patients by providing best treatment. But these hospitals has experienced so many
issues while handling the patients, there were lack of staffs and bed facility which is making
it difficult to admit more affected patients in the hospital. One of the Nightingale hospitals
which was considered as one of the largest from all, almost 16000 staff were required against
the 4000 beds. In the absence of workers hospital management was not able to provide the

best service to their patients. Due to this Nightingale hospital has decided to look after only
those people who are living nearby to the hospitals.
While developing any project it is very important to identify the what kind of
technique should be used by the management team as this will support in giving the overall
assurance about the accomplishment of the function. In order to fulfil the requirements in the
process of project management there are numbers of techniques has been utilised. And if
consider Manchester Nightingale Hospital, the PDSA method has been used by the
management which is depicting the concept of plan do study act. As per this, while
government has look out over the situation of pandemic then a plan has been formed by the
team who were involved in the activity of project management. Furthermore, decision
regarding the task which are necessary for the function has been included in this. Then the
team has conducted the required study by which it will become easy to analyse the situation
of pandemic, it will help in providing the best treatment to the patients who were admitted
there. Apart from this there are numbers of techniques which could be used in the formation
of project and these are mentioned below-
 Stakeholder Analysis- Before starting any project it is essential to find out the people
who are associated with the activities which is being conducted in it. Furthermore, by
acknowledging these people in this process, the project management team can
examine the overall impact and influence of these people on the complete lifecycle of
the project. In addition to this stakeholder analysis helps in determining the interest
and power of the people in the completion of the project in direct and indirect way
(Revathi, and Valliathal, 2021). There are few reasons due to which analysis of
stakeholder’s has been conducted in the company such as preparing the list of all
those people who can bring the changes in the activities of the organisation and helps
in making some kind of modification in the project as per the demand of these
participants. By considering the people who are intricated in the execution of project
stakeholder analysis gives a detailed information about the configuration with the
accomplishment of the projects. Commonly, stakeholder analysis helps in identifying
the conflicts among the people for which the project is being started and helps in
resolving these complications with the well-suited tactic. It is vital for the success of
the project management to collect the qualitative information about the numbers of
stakeholders who are linked with the activities, as it will help in maintain the suitable
conversation about the activities which are involved in the project. The first step in

this process is connected with the determining the people who will become the
stakeholder for the project. They could exist in the form of executive staff, finance
team, development or operational team as well (Beatrix, 2019). Later on, make a
suitable set for all the stakeholders according to the preferences and needs of project
management. The basis of this division will be the interest and power of the
individual in the project.
According to the diagram it is understandable that by looking over the interest
and power of the stakeholder in the overall activity of the project management,
decision regarding their involvement in the lifecycle of the project could be taken.
 Critical Path Method- The process by which the activity of project management gets
complete in the definite timeline or the longest path which is utilised by the firm for
the completion of a task is known as critical path method. This tactic of project
management helps in drawing the suitable time line for all the activities which are
needed for the completion of the project management. In this certain timeline has
been allotted to the all the activities and these have to completed in that particular
period (Kundu, Halder, and Majumder, 2022). This because if the management get the
ability to complete the task in the give time, then the overall project will get
completed in the decided period. It is a graphical representation of various different
activities in which they are correlated with each other. It further helps and elaborate
about the actual sequence which is arranged in the form which depicts the maximum
time range which has been taken by one activity to get complete. It generally
represents the dependencies of one activity to another that are formulate for the
completion of project management. So, the critical path helps in identifying the
coordination among the activities that are mentioned during the planning of project.
 Work Breakdown Structure- It is a graphic, ordered and goal oriented for the
accomplishment of a project. This framework supports the project manager to
distribute the work in distinct part by which they can recognize the need and
High
Low
Power
Low HighInterest
Keep
satisfied
Monitor
Manage
Closely
Keep
Informed

requirement of each task to complete them within a set range of time (Anggrek,
2022). It provides a brief outline to the activities which are included in the project,
and due to this project manager consider it as the most vital instruments in overall life
cycle of the project. And after the completion of the project a deliverable output has
been presented by the team, with the systematic association of all the task with the
topmost task which is written on the graph. It is also used in the preparation of Gantt
chart as it shows the different levels which needs to fulfilled for the completion of the
project. In the process of project management, work break down structure represents
the schedule for all the phases which assist in the formation of detailed practices of
the activities. In short, it is a format of map which needs to be followed by the team
while working on any task and perform them very well.
 Methodology- In order to make the functioning of project smooth and obstruction
free, managers have to select any kind of policy which will govern the every phase
and actions which are taken by the staff of the team. It helps in formulation of plans
and managing the task by ordering them. Agile methodology in project management
helps in serving those projects which are prepared or meant for the very small period
of time. It generally relies on the demands and needs of the customers in the market.
On the other side waterfall technique of project management is shows the relation
among the various practices of project. It reflects the internal connection between
them and states that in order to move on to another task it is crucial to complete the
current one. This is because it eliminates the chances of any risk in in the life cycle of
the project and ensure its success. There is another methodology which is called as
Prince2 and basically it works according to the principles which provides the overall
guideline to the project and making it achievable with the help of resources and
finance which is being availed to the project manager. It helps in assigning all the
obligation and duties to the members of the team (Crespi-Vallbona, and Mascarilla-
Miró, 2021).
In general, Nightingale Hospital was sited in ExCel London convention centre in East
London. But there are other areas where it was set up for the purpose of serving the corona
infected people. Some report has shown that government has spent around more than half
billion for the arrangement of these hospitals in the different locality of the country. Even
some professionals have questioned over the amount of money invested in these temporary
health care centres. These hospitals are formed with the 500-bed capacity, where doctors

were trying to give the best in helping the patients at their optimum level. By the evolution of
these health care department government wants to aware the people about the emergence of
cleanliness and hygiene among the people (Zabidi, Wang, and Xu, 2018). They want to show
that if people neglect the safety measure for their own health, then it can be hazardous and
life threating for