The challenge
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is the largest single site cancer centre in Europe and the first in the UK to be accredited as a comprehensive cancer centre. As one of only three specialist cancer trusts in England, The Christie’s researchers are working on around 900 clinical trials and studies at any one time and collaborates with major institutions like The University of Manchester and Cancer Research UK.
As a pioneer in both research and care, The Christie had relied on an in-house Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system originally built by clinicians and staff in 2011. While the system had served the Trust well for many years, increasing demands, advances in digital healthcare and the sheer scale of activity meant it was reaching the limits of what it could deliver. The Trust’s leadership recognised the importance of fully understanding their clinical and operational pathways in detail before making decisions about future systems.
Process, data and system efficiency
Because of the Trust’s scale and complexity, departments had naturally developed different ways of working, with processes that varied across teams. This created an opportunity to build consistency, visibility and efficiency across the organisation. The Christie worked with Differentis, a specialist partner of Netcall, focusing on the implementation of Liberty Spark, our process mapping and improvement solution.
“It’s been fantastic to see how Liberty Spark (with Differentis) has transformed how we work. What used to take months – just to build a couple of workflows – now takes days. We’ve been able to map out all our hospital processes and finally have that big-picture view quicker than we ever imagined. Getting there so fast has been a massive win – it’s made a real difference to how we deliver care.”
Alistair Reid-Pearson
Chief Information Officer, The Christie Foundation NHS Trust
The solution
Differentis helped The Christie to map out the organisation’s clinical pathways current processes through a comprehensive process mapping exercise. Differentis worked hands-on with the people doing the real work: Admin staff, nurses and clinicians across all major key patient pathways. Together they drove quality improvement in healthcare by:
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Getting the real picture: By mapping out the main care pathways, they could see how they actually worked in practice and how different systems and processes connected together.
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Finding the pain points: They identified where things were breaking down and could see opportunities to make life easier for staff and better for patients.
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Following the data: By tracking every form and piece of patient data being captured, they could understand the most crucial forms and data use in each pathway.
They found that patient pathways were highly complex, with individual pathways often working in isolation. Mapping them collaboratively in real-time gave everyone visibility of workflows and surfaced valuable knowledge, while engaging staff who had not always been involved in such exercises before.
“Differentis has really helped us to clearly understand our patient pathways, breaking down a daunting process into easy-to-understand maps. The outputs surpassed my expectations, especially the data insights they provided. It was an absolute pleasure working with all of the Differentis team and I hope our paths cross again in the future.” Beth Allen, Senior Digital Implementer, The Christie Foundation NHS Trust.
In partnership with Differentis, The Christie teams used Spark to deliver a large-scale process mapping project, systematically documenting 70+ processes covering the full patient journey from referral through discharge, with enhanced analysis applied to priority areas for maximum operational impact.
This became the backbone of their new Business Process Centre of Excellence.
They identified 99% of all form submissions – totalling 2.8 million form submissions from the beginning of January to the beginning of December. For the first time, the Trust gained complete visibility of its data landscape.
The analysis revealed some valuable opportunities to improve user experience:
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30% of forms were identified as low-value for staff time and could be streamlined or retired
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Around half of form submissions were found to have direct clinical benefit
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By optimising and simplifying form use, The Christie achieved a 50% reduction in manual data entry.
By addressing form design challenges, The Christie reduced duplication and administrative burden, creating more time for patient care.
Everything mapped is now live in Liberty Spark, enabling ongoing analysis and improvement as part of the Trust’s transformation journey. By investing 4 months in understanding their current state, The Christie created a strategic asset that will guide years of improvement and system development.
What started as a discovery project to understand their current state, turned into something much bigger. As well as a clearer picture of how their operations truly work, The Christie has a roadmap for making further improvements. With the tools and processes in place, they can keep improving as they continue their mission to provide world-class cancer care.
As the Christie embarks on their Future Christie project (focusing on making cancer care more connected, responsive and personalised for patients, while supporting staff with better systems and ways of working), Liberty Spark has enabled them to build the foundations of a highly successful project.
“The work that we did with Differentis in Liberty Spark is the foundation of transformational change. It will effectively be a cornerstone for the “Future Christie” transformation program.”
Alistair Reid-Pearson
Chief Information Officer, The Christie Foundation NHS Trust
The result
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4-month timeline to map the entire hospital pathways (estimated 18+ months using traditional methods)
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9 major pathways comprehensively documented
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80+ stakeholders engaged and interviewed
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70+ detailed process maps created
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100% process validation achieved through stakeholder sign-off
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Identified opportunity for 50% reduction in manual data entry for Nursing staff
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Immediate ROI through cancelled software licenses and improved efficiency.
Establishing the foundations for transformation
The Christie’s implementation of Liberty Spark shows how comprehensive process mapping can strengthen organisational understanding and establish foundations for digital transformation. The success has already sparked additional use cases in areas such as patient journey mapping, financial process mapping, automation pipeline integration and as a blueprint for new site implementations.
Process mapping has not only solved immediate documentation needs but established The Christie as a model for how healthcare organisations can leverage modern process mapping technology to drive systematic improvement and prepare for future challenges.
“Liberty Spark was critical to the success of this project. Given the scale and complexity of the clinical pathways within a leading cancer trust, we required a tool that would allow us to quickly capture processes in collaborative workshops. Spark enabled us to obtain a significant depth of understanding of the pathways, helping us to deliver our project objectives and crucially value to the client. Its speed, accessibility and collaborative functionality enabled broad staff involvement throughout the trust, capturing invaluable insights while minimising demands on their time.”
Sam Leitch
Business Architect, Differentis