What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme of 'How can improvement be used to reduce delays accessing health and care services'?

Access to timely and effective diagnostic services is critical to providing high quality care, reducing waiting times for treatment and improving health outcomes. One months data was reviewed and found that patients waited an average of 2.8 months from Gynaecological Ultrasound to MRI. Currently patient’s get referred by GP’s for US scans. When significant pathology requires further imaging they must first go back to their GP and then be referred to the gynae outpatients department to request MRI. We aim to streamline our diagnostic Ultrasound to MRI service reducing the patient’s RTT pathway. We aim to trial an onward referral system for patients requiring further imaging from US to have this done without having to go back and forth between the GP and hospital. We will engage with stakeholders to get buy in whilst working with the radiologists to define referral criteria.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Our objective is to introduce an onward referral system so that patients who require further imaging due to suspicious pathologies can have this done without having to go back to the GP. This will improve the gynae departments ability to meet the RTT(Referral to treatment) target for cancer patients. We aim to reduce the current waiting time from US scan to MRI scan by 2months. This will be achieved by engaging with the GPs, Gynaecology department, Administrators, Sonographers and Radiologists to create a joined up approach to onward referral and patient pathway. It’s about providing the right care to the right person at the right time. This will improve patient experience and help alleviate their anxieties and make diagnostics available without long waiting times which is vital in reducing health inequalities.

How will the project be delivered?

We have engaged with several members of our team including radiologists, sonographers, schedulers and managers, so that there is someone from every aspect of the pathway involved. We also intend to engage with a focus group of GP practices and the hospital gynaecological team to ensure the success of this pathway. This will require a project manager to co-ordinate. We will use the PDSA cycle to audit waiting time reduction using our change ideas. We will use funding to get extra technical support for computers/laptops to streamline communication with GP’s and consultants. These will also enable testing of new admin processes. We will need to employ bank staff to test additional scheduling and admin tasks along with radiologist’s time to guide new referral criteria and provide safe supervision of new processes. An extra sonographer list will be created to test our ideas.

How is your project going to share learning?

This project can generate interest from many NHS trusts across the community and beyond.  It is a pathway that can be adopted by many departments once proven successful.  It is easily transferable to other imaging onward referral ideas and can be adapted to suit most services.

It will be shared locally on audit days.

It will be shared at our quality improvement board with all hospital divisions.