English C1: Presenting a project

Write a piece presenting a project you have worked on (at work, at university or as a volunteer).

Last year, together with four colleagues, I led a project aimed at reducing waiting times in our hospital’s accident and emergency department. The background was the growing number of patients, some of whom had to wait more than five hours to be treated. My main task was to analyse the existing procedures and to interview the nursing staff. This revealed that a great deal of time was being lost through duplicate paperwork. The greatest difficulty lay in persuading everyone involved to accept change, since many were sceptical about the project at first. It was only after we had tested the new procedure during a four-week trial and presented the results openly that attitudes began to shift. Average waiting times have since fallen by almost forty per cent, and both patients and staff are noticeably more satisfied. For me personally, the most important lesson was that good ideas alone are not enough: change only succeeds if the people who are expected to carry it out are involved from the very beginning.