Exploring the barriers to lean health care implementation

Abstract

This article analyses implementation barriers to lean thinking in health care, based on experience of applying lean thinking in the UK's National Health Service (NHS). It discusses the differences and similarities between lean thinking in manufacturing and health care and why lean implementation has been slower in health care than in manufacturing. The problems to be faced and overcome when implementing lean approaches are compared with those in other improvement programmes. The authors conclude that lean approaches do offer ways to improve health care.

Acknowledgements

We thank Harry Clarke from the Blackpool, Field and Wyre NHS Foundation Trust and Moira Laird from the North Lancashire NHS PCT for their support on this research, Andrew Archibald from GE Health care for sharing his knowledge with us and Stuart Roby from the Manufacturing Institute for the valuable discussions that originated this work.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luciano Brandão de Souza

Luciano Brandão de Souza is a doctoral researcher at Lancaster University, UK.

Michael Pidd

Michael Pidd is Professor of Management Science at Lancaster University, UK.