I am writing to update you on important changes soon to take place in our hospitals.

"As you know, the continuing recession has had a significant impact on the demand for private healthcare services nationwide. Both the private medical insurance and self-pay markets have experienced a decline; and whilst for a time there was great potential for private healthcare providers to offset this decline by accepting more NHS work, this is now unlikely to come fully to fruition due to the impact of the more recent budget cuts taking place in the NHS.

"With these factors in mind, and as part of our ongoing commitment to achieving excellence through innovation, BMI has re-examined the way its hospital structure operates within the current economic and healthcare landscape.

"As some of you already know, the BMI management team has been carrying out a strategic review of its business as well as a benchmarking exercise where we compared the processes, resources and results of similar sized hospitals. This has provided us with valuable insight into how we can adopt the best practices of top performing departments in the group to work more effectively and still deliver the same high levels of patient care.

"The review is now complete and we have identified a number of tactics which, once implemented, will dramatically improve efficiency for our hospitals as well as promote growth in the long term.

"Over the next couple of months, and before Easter, we will be making a series of operational changes to hospitals throughout the group which will include:
Improvements to theatre scheduling to ensure no slots are wasted
Increased focus on the training and development of theatre staff to reduce the need for agency cover
Reduction in overtime
Reassessment of need for filling job vacancies on a like for like basis – for example, making team roles more flexible to cover a wider range of activities, and eliminating the use of skilled clinical staff for full time administration tasks

"In addition, we will be creating a new business model which reflects the demand for new forms of healthcare delivery, including setting up a new self-pay pricing structure, working closely with GP consortia and developing new and innovative services.

"We will also be streamlining the BMI regional structure to allow our talented hospital teams to have greater responsibility and accountability for their strategic development and performance. Lastly, we are making a number of changes at BMI’s head office which will result in a leaner structure, focused on supporting growth initiatives.