Process Design

Optimise before you automate.

Bad processes make for bad automations. Automating an inefficient, fragmented workflow simply drains your IT budget faster. Our process design analysts map, refine, and standardise your operations to eliminate waste and guarantee maximum efficiency before a single line of code is written.

Speak to a process analyst
The Challenge

We untangle the operational knot.

Over time, NHS administrative and clinical pathways become layered with workarounds, duplicated efforts, and unnecessary approval steps. Our team of NHS-substantive process design experts deploy Lean Six Sigma methodologies to forensically examine how your trust actually works.

We identify the bottlenecks, standardise the variations, and redesign the workflow for maximum digital efficiency, delivering a leaner operation that is perfectly primed for intelligent automation.

All process design work is led by NHS-substantive analysts. We do not hand over a report and leave. The redesigned workflow reflects how your organisation actually operates, not how it looks on paper.

30 mins of manual handling eliminated per CKD referral after pathway redesign
4,289 referrals processed end-to-end since go-live in April 2024
50–70 referrals per week standardised through a single, redesigned clinical pathway
Core Deliverables

What our process design covers

Every engagement is tailored to your organisation’s workflows, scale, and automation readiness. These are the four core deliverables our analysts provide across a typical process design engagement.

1

As-Is process mapping and bottleneck identification

Forensically examining your current operations to uncover hidden inefficiencies, workarounds, and duplicated efforts.

2

Lean Six Sigma workflow optimisation

Applying proven methodologies to streamline pathways, eliminate waste, and standardise variations across teams.

3

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) development

Creating clear, fully documented processes that ensure consistency and compliance across your workforce.

4

To-Be automation blueprinting and Process Definition Document

Designing a highly efficient, future-state workflow that is perfectly primed for digital automation, documented as a Process Definition Document that you sign off before any development begins.

Case Study

Standardising the CKD referral pathway across North Central London.

Process Design

Standardising the CKD referral pathway across North Central London

North Central London’s Chronic Kidney Disease referral service was processing between 50 and 70 referrals a week through a manual workflow spanning multiple clinical systems. Each referral required around 30 minutes of manual handling, with clinical risk compounded by transcription errors, registration delays, and inconsistent clinician access to patient records at the point of triage.

Before a single line of code was written, TPHC mapped the end-to-end pathway, identified the integration points between NHS e-Referral Service and EMIS, and designed a standardised workflow covering referral collection, registration, triage, outcome letters, and discharge.

50 to 70 referrals processed per week
30 minutes of manual handling eliminated per referral
2,144 hours (286 working days) of clinical administration time returned
Single standardised pathway replacing fragmented manual process
4,289 referrals processed end-to-end, April 2024 to March 2026

‘The TPHC Digital Productivity team worked closely with us to design and deliver this innovative solution to support interoperability between two clinical systems, facilitating a comprehensive triage process at scale across NCL. Simultaneously, it has reduced the manual burden on administrative teams, freeing them up to deliver essential workload. It has been a pleasure to work with the TPHC team, who have been collaborative and responsive throughout the project.’

Sarah Milne, Clinical Lead for Chronic Kidney Disease, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
Read the CKD referral automation case study

Where next

Browse the automation catalogue

Browse examples of highly optimised workflows built and tested by our process design team.

Browse the catalogue

Digital clinical safety

Ensure your newly designed clinical pathways meet strict national safety standards.

Learn about clinical safety

Read our process design case studies

Explore how our workflow optimisation saved North Central London 30 minutes per CKD referral.

Read our case studies

Request a process review

Have a complex operational bottleneck? Speak to a process analyst to start untangling it.

Book a discovery call