Langley House Surgery streamlining patient care with printing

Langley House Surgery is a busy general practice located in central Chichester, West Sussex, with a satellite surgery in nearby Bosham.

Since opening in the 1950s, it has expanded steadily and now employs nine doctors, three nurses and more than 20 other staff. On a day-to-day basis, there is a great deal of administration, and in particular printing, to be done at Langley House.

The surgery managers realised their printing set-up needed an upgrade when reviewing the resources spent on troubleshooting and shopping around for best price consumables. They recognised that a bespoke managed print service (MPS) would be the best solution to address all aspects of the surgery’s printing needs – and challenges.

As with most GP surgeries, the print management requirements of Langley House fall under the regional clinical commissioning group (CCG) and clinical support unit (CSU), but these are busy organisations working on tight budgets. The prospect of a managed print service (MPS) for a local GP practice is generally an attractive option, because it can free up resources – particularly manpower – in pressured NHS organisations, as well as reduce costs and enhance productivity through efficient third-party management.

With that in mind, in 2018 Langley House Surgery consulted Buywise Health, a company founded by a GP federation to help surgeries optimise their purchasing and back-office provision. Buywise introduced them to their own technology supplier, ARC-IT.

Having established Langley House’s printing baseline and requirements, ARC-IT knew that an MPS with Epson business inkjet devices would provide the best solution. That confidence was born of solid experience, since ARC-IT had trialled Epson solutions at other GP practices with great success.

ARC-IT decided to switch Langley House Surgery from laser to inkjet printers, due to them being greener as well as more durable and longer-lasting devices. A key part of Epson’s healthcare range, WorkForce Pro printers have been shown to have up to 96% lower energy consumption than lasers and produce up to 94% less waste.

In February 2019, ARC-IT installed 22 Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5299DW printers, one Epson WorkForce Pro WF-C579RDTWF multi-functional device, and one Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5799DWF multi-functional printer at Langley House Surgery.

Mindful of the fact that consultants are especially frequent printing users, devices in consultation rooms were supplied with full tanks of ink, rather than the usual starter packs, to extend the time between cartridge changes and reduce the use of consumables. The printing hardware supported this a great deal, as Epson inkjet printers are up to 3.5 times faster¹ and require up to 98%² less user intervention compared to a laser printer, while low energy (up to 96% less energy than a laser printer³) and high yield ink cartridges help users save significant costs.

The new MPS allows ARC-IT to monitor and analyse the health of printers at Langley House in real time, via an online portal. This remote access enables print technicians to react faster when problems occur and often even intervene before an issue arises, minimising the disruptions to day-to-day operations. Surgery staff now no longer need to wait for an engineer to be dispatched to their site in order to respond to printer problems, and can spend their time on more important tasks – taking care of patients.

“Langley House Surgery is already reaping the benefits of the MPS with Epson hardware and consumables”, according to Lynn Mayne, Assistant Practice Manager at Langley House Surgery, the practice has saved around £12,000 as a result. “I have noticed a major time saving with our new printers; we no longer have to troubleshoot printers or constantly order toner and drum cartridges – which runs up a large time and consumables bill! I would certainly recommend this system to any other surgeries out there,” adds Mayne.

Indeed, Langley House Surgery shows how a tailored and carefully resourced MPS can spread benefits throughout the local health economy. In this case, the CCG and CSU have both also benefited from the specialist expertise and resources of the provider, leaving those NHS organisations free to focus on other tasks. The surgery has also benefited from time that has been freed up – whereas previously hours were spent solving issues and sourcing consumables, this precious time can now be devoted to practice management and patient care.