Frimley Health Foundation Trust (FHFT) has won the Lean Competency System Organisation of the Year award at The LCS Awards 2025. 

Members of the Frimley Excellence (FX) team, who lead the trust’s improvement programme, picked up the coveted award on behalf of the trust at a ceremony in Cardiff last month. 

The award “recognises an organisation that has demonstrated outstanding commitment to lean principles and continuous improvement….[who] will have successfully embedded a culture of operational excellence, delivered measurable business results, and fostered innovation through lean thinking.” 

As a finalist in four of the ten awards, the Frimley Excellence team were able to show how dedicated the trust is to the implementation of improvement, innovation and sustainable practices in developing exceptional services and outstanding patient care. Through their excellent support, the FX team train, encourage and support lean working practices, projects and thinking through its FX Way at all sites and within all departments and wards. 

The citations for each category in which they were shortlisted were incredibly positive. 

Innovation: FHFT was found to be “A leader in healthcare innovation, with a scalable and equitable continuous improvement model and strong sector-wide influence.” 

Sustainability: The judges believed that “FX’s holistic sustainability approach—blending staff empowerment, clinical efficiency, and environmental stewardship—positions it as a model for sustainable healthcare systems. It demonstrates breadth of impact, from energy to procurement to patient care.” 

Improvement for Good: Frimley Health “demonstrates deep embedding of continuous improvement in clinical and operational areas within healthcare, balancing quantitative results with behavioural and systemic change. Broadly inspirational and data-supported.” 

However, FHFT led the way and was overall winner in the Organisation of the Year, thanks to how “Frimley [Health] demonstrate[s] exemplary application of lean in a complex public healthcare setting with visible patient and operational outcomes.” 

Jen Knight, Head of Frimley Excellence, says; “Although the FX team is our conduit, this award is a recognition of the organisation as a whole. It is recognition for everyone in the trust who has participated, applied or been a part of our improvement journey. 

“We have been recognised for our "clear vision, and consistent delivery - embedding a single approach organisation-wide and sharing best practice across the NHS"”.  

Caroline Hutton, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Transformation and Digital, said:

“It’s wonderful to see the Trust’s improvement work recognised nationally with this award. Congratulations to the Frimley Excellence (FX) team and every department and individual who have used their FX training to deliver improvements within their area and for patients. By utilising our FX approach not only are we continuously improving to be the best that we can be but we’re taking every opportunity to keep learning, innovating and ensuring our services are fit for the future.” 

The cohort of finalists in these global awards included international consultancy, public sector, manufacturing, and insurance sectors. 

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