£8MILLION A YEAR – THE HIDDEN COST OF PEOPLE GETTING LOST

LAST MONTH I COLLECTED NEW DATA at a large UK hospital and reached an eye-watering estimate of £8.4 million for staff time spent helping people find their way around the site. An online staff survey with 100 responses from clinical and non-clinical staff is a just the start. Even if this is an over-estimation, the cost is likely to be unexpectedly high! Here’s how I got to this figure:

AN AMAZING AMOUNT OF TIME…AND COST

•      86% of staff help someone find their way every day for at least a minute.

•      Average time spent: 22 minutes per day.

•      84 hours per year (assuming 5 days a week and 46 weeks working a year).

•      For staff earning £20p/hr, annual cost of helping people navigate is £1,680.

•      At a large site with 5,000 staff x £1680 – THAT IS £8.4MILLION A YEAR!

•      This is an avoidable cost – it can be reduced with clear navigation systems. 

EFFICIENCY ISSUES – IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT TIME COSTS  

•      Staff diverted from their primary roles once a day – services are disrupted.

•      Lost patients are late – appointments delayed, staff waiting wastes time.

•      Staff allow extra journey time to help lost people – affects productivity.

•      37% of staff say helping people find their way impacts their productivity.

NAVIGATION FAILURE – A CORE OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATION

For Directors of Estates, Facilities, Capital Projects, New Hospital Programmes, Communications, and Patient Experience – unclear navigation systems have serious operational inefficiency implications that add avoidable costs.

PEOPLE GETTING LOST IMPACTS SAFETY, security, compliance, risk and site-user satisfaction. Solving site navigation issues needs to move up your strategic plan, and be allocated more budget, especially at sites with new building works that will change familiar navigation routes.

PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH ME: I’d love to help you identify your Navigation Risk Factors and calculate the hidden costs of people getting lost at your site. I will develop a 60day quick-wins business case, with measurable ROI, to help you make your site accessible and navigable for everyone.