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<\/p>\nAt the Dutch Grand Prix, among the sports stars and musicians who strolled around the Zandvoort paddock and filled the grid was a different kind of VIP, Professor Martin Elliott, who spent much of his career as a paediatric cardiothoracic surgeon \u2014 operating on children\u2019s hearts and lungs \u2014 at Great Ormond Street Hospital.<\/p>\n
There may seem no obvious connection to Formula 1, but Elliott was a guest of Ferrari, thanks to the relationship he has built with them for more than two decades after their respective fields of interest collided serendipitously one Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Marc de Laval \u2014 a Belgian surgeon who was Elliott\u2019s predecessor \u2014 in his research into a field of work called \u201chuman factors\u201d discovered there were several theories around how people interact with each other either positively or negatively to affect an outcome. An investigation into a crisis at Bristol Children\u2019s Hospital had found that the journey from the operating room to the intensive care unit was, in itself, dangerous because people made it so, despite their best intentions.<\/p>\n
This was where Formula 1 entered the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were basically just knackered one Sunday lunchtime,\u201d Elliott, 73, says. \u201cWe\u2019d been operating on Saturday, transplanted on Saturday night, another operation on Sunday morning and slumped down in front of the TV. I was sitting there with Allan Goldman, a South African colleague, and we watched a McLaren pitstop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very fast \u2014 when they were refuelling in those days \u2014 and there were a few shots which suddenly reminded us of the problem we were facing. Essentially, if you look down on the pitstop from above, there\u2019s your [driver] in the car and all the people looking after that precious parcel and when you look down on a baby on a trolley moving from one place to the other, it\u2019s the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Elliott, centre, performs open heart surgery at London\u2019s Great Ormond Street Hospital<\/p>\n
SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n
Elliott and Goldman decided that if McLaren could refuel a car and change the tyres in less than seven seconds, then they could surely improve their process of transporting babies.<\/p>\n
They approached McLaren, who found an engineering solution: having a multifunctional operating table which was also a trolley and an intensive care unit bed. \u201cIt was the right answer but unachievable,\u201d Elliott explains, the type of thinking that creates success in professional sport but is unaffordable for the NHS.<\/p>\n
By chance, at a management conference, they bumped into a representative of Shell, which partners Ferrari and passed on contact details. They secured a research grant that allowed Ferrari and Great Ormond Street to collaborate, and Elliott even travelled to Ferrari\u2019s headquarters in Maranello. The findings were stark.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had them look at our process map, which didn\u2019t exist, and their process map, which was massive. Getting them to look at what we did in the same detail. They thought we were useless,\u201d Elliott says, before joking that this was the politest term he could use for what Ferrari actually thought.<\/p>\n
Ferrari split their key areas of focus into categories: leadership, task sequence and allocation, risk prediction, discipline and composure and practice.<\/p>\n
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Elliott admits Ferrari thought his hospital\u2019s practices were \u201cuseless\u201d when they first teamed up<\/p>\n
ALAMY<\/p>\n
They soon discovered that many of the good intentions surgeons and nurses had were in fact part of the problem. At a pitstop, everyone has dedicated roles and responsibilities, from those taking the wheel off to the leader who defines when the car is safe to be released into the pitlane.<\/p>\n
If something went wrong in the journey to theatre \u2014 such as a crucial wire becoming unattached \u2014 all staff would rush to the issue in an attempt to fix it, rather than having the discipline and structure for one dedicated staff member to do so in a less panicked manner.<\/p>\n
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