An award-winning provider of mobility & disability aids
Millbrook Healthcare Group is an award-winning service provider, working mostly with NHS Trusts and local authorities. Supplying and servicing mobility and related equipment, they support thousands of patients across the UK through a network of local depots, and more than 300 vans.
Acquired by Cairngorm Capital in 2019, Millbrook appointed Equator to lead a programme of wide scale business change.
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Streamlining an increasingly cumbersome operation
On the face of it, the goal was simple - to streamline an increasingly cumbersome operation, giving it a competitive advantage and efficiency across the board. At the same time, we had to maintain and enhance a brilliant experience for users, including NHS prescribers and authorisers, service end-users, and an internal audience of technicians, installers and managers.
Going in deep
As with most change programmes, we began with a discovery stage - and in this case, it was particularly deep and detailed. The £150m operation was suffering from a serious lack of documentation on tech, workflows and operating procedures. We had to understand where Millbrook was before we could determine where we needed to take them - and how to get there.
So we held an extended programme of workshops with commercial, procurement, operations, back-office and CSA teams, as well as individual service and distribution centres around the country.
The output was a 125-page report, which in turn informed an interactive prototype used to reassure and explain to stakeholders while giving engineering and testing teams the material they needed.
The sector-leading Prescriber Tool
Key to Millbrook’s service is the triangular relationship between the business, the service user and the NHS prescriber. So a fundamental part of our solution is an innovative Prescriber Tool. Inspired by online shopping brands, with an ecommerce look and feel, the Tool provides intuitive searching and filtering, clear informational hierarchy, and a well-structured checkout process.
Transforming the system architecture
The Prescriber Tool is a vital shop window for Millbrook’s operation, but it’s only part of the wider business management solution. Behind the scenes, the Admin Portal we’ve created is equally important in supporting and streamlining the business.
Amongst other innovative changes, our work has provided Millbrook with:
A fully configurable contract-builder tool for the commercial team
Full integration of data flow for warehouse management systems
Integrated route-planning, technical notes and access details for drivers and installers
A procurement module that manages inventory, suppliers and purchasing
An invoicing module which calculates charges based on the contract’s billing model
An industry-leading, best-practice solution which will support their in-house team and serve as a platform for continued growth for decades to come.
Beyond Digital Transformation
Our work for Millbrook shows how Equator’s teams can go further than ‘just’ digital transformation, using broader analytical and planning skills to change entire business cultures for the better. To see what we could do for your own operation, get in touch.