Tina’s Super-Efficient 2gether Team wins Prestigious Award

An impressive project which delivered more productive services as well as £1.2 million worth of savings has earned 2gether NHS Foundation Trust a prestigious national award.

The Gloucester-based Trust, which provides mental health, substance misuse and developmental disability services in Gloucestershire, beat off competition from across the country to win the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Efficiency Award.

The winning project involved the redesign of one of 2gether’s five Strategic Service Units – mental health services for adults of working age – during 2006/07 and 2007/08. During the redesign, traditional community mental health teams were replaced with more proactive targeted services and productivity was increased.

The project delivered savings of £1.2m, which will help to ensure that 2gether continues to provide and improve high quality, value for money services across the county in the future.

Lead Management Accountant Tina Benson said: “It is an honour to have received this award and does reinforce how well the finance department and clinicians can work together.

“We would not have been able to make this saving without the support of the individual professionals behind it.”

The judges praised the close working relationship between Tina’s team, managers, clinicians and other healthcare professionals which ensured the project was delivered successfully and remained within budget.

The judges added: “The project has resulted in fundamental changes in the provision of services that have actively benefited patient experience, despite being lower cost, with several of the developments being celebrated as best practice.”

The HFMA Awards have been running since 2004 and are the country’s most comprehensive awards programme for healthcare financial management.