This week’s HSJ efficiency supplement examines how trusts are preparing to deal with winter pressures this year, as well as how patient transport can be improved.

The first article looks at the job of getting people to hospital and back, which has been bedevilled by a host of seemingly insurmountable problems. Coperforma is now helping trusts get to grips with the flaws in their systems, as Alison Moore reports.

Hospitals are gearing up for the start of the busy season in accident and emergency, as the second article in the supplement highlights. To avoid the crises experienced in previous winters, many organisations are moving towards co-located urgent and primary care services. An overhaul by Coperforma tackled the difficulties experienced by patients from The Royal London Hospital and Hampshire Hospitals Trust.

Moving up a gear − an HSJ efficiency supplement