The challenge
The National Elective Restoration team within NECS plays a vital role in supporting the delivery plan for tackling the substantial backlog of NHS care, which sits at the highest number of people waiting to receive planned NHS care since records began in 2007.
The team supports ambitious plans to bring down long waits for elective and diagnostic backlog by supporting specific NHSE programmes across regions, systems, providers and independent sectors.
These programmes include increasing capacity within waiting lists, a clear focus on clinical prioritisation, transformation of care and improved information for patients.
Our response
The team worked within region alongside NHSE colleagues, locality leads, providers and ISPs to deliver rapid change using project and analytical expert knowledge to support improvements in the national elective recovery delivery plan.
The following tasks were delivered:
- Provision of expert knowledge, building and maintaining relationships, delivering and supporting rapid change
- Leading of monthly forums with providers to share good practice and support operational issues
- Holding of individual meetings with providers to discuss starting position and working improvement plan
- Sharing of intelligence weekly/monthly alongside concise communications
- Working closely with our NHSE regional and system leads to ensure our strategies were aligned to support each provider
- Proactive engagement with all stakeholders to ensure all programmes had the best chance of success
- Celebrating improvements with providers, system leads and within the NHSE regional/national elective meeting.
Outcomes
The Data Quality programme has and continues to be a real success story. Over the last year, the number of RTT pathways has increased from 5,431,382 to 6,422,389 (18 per cent increase), however the number of metrics has decreased from 1,259,363 to 808,532 (36 per cent decrease). This has led to a significant increase in the confidence level overall from 96.8 per cent to 98.4 per cent and a decrease in the number of potential RTT pathway issues.
Surgical and diagnostic prioritisation has also seen a real improvement from the start of each programme (both initially at 0 per cent). Some of the surgical prioritisation has reduced slightly as the pathways have changed to diagnostic prioritisation. Diagnostic rates have climbed from around 82 per cent to approaching 90 per cent, while surgical rates are now fluctuating around the 89 per cent mark.