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'?

To realise the healthcare vision of providing excellent health services to all, collaboration between primary care, the Trust and other external providers is key.  Clinicians require timely access to clinical data and information about patients if they are to deliver robust patient care, based on accurate information about their patients.  At present, the length of time that it takes for an outpatient clinic letter to be sent to the patient and associated external providers (including GPs) following an outpatient appointment usually breaches the 7-day turnaround time best practice which is specified in the NHS Standard Contract. Similarly, there is at least a 1.8 day wait after a cancer or urgent letter is dictated prior to letter creation. This means that the turnaround time between clinic appointment and the letter being sent to the patient is highly likely to exceed the 48-hour target for cancer and urgent letters.

What does your project aim to achieve?

–          Patients: Patients will receive accurate clinic letters more quickly, helping them to be more informed about their healthcare and plan for future appointments accordingly.  Patient care will also improve as, in some instances, next steps on the patient’s pathway will be arranged more quickly by bookings staff as a result of the letters being available, e.g. bloods/diagnostic tests.

–          Assist to Meet Faster Diagnosis Standards: Delays in sending out clinic letters for patients on a cancer pathway are prevalent, particularly with certain tumour sites, i.e., breast, colorectal. Introduction of the VR with Outpatient Workflow solution better enables quick clinic letter turnaround, and will support the delivery of FDS.

–          Staff: Reduce workflow for staff – reduce administrative tasks

–          Improved Collaboration with Local Authority, Voluntary Sector: If VR is adopted more broadly across CHS, then improved access to information for Social Care and other agencies e.g. care providers will facilitate a smoother discharge process.

How will the project be delivered?

A project team exists to deliver on this programme, a pilot has been completed in outpatients using digital dictation and we aim to expand this success further, modelling the primary pilot outputs and learning into other areas. This project has oversight from the outpatient transformation programme board which standardises governance and reporting processes and appropriately challenges where necessary, ensuring value for money and managing risk. This collaborative project includes key stakeholders from pivotal specialties to ensure successful delivery and robust QI methodology is applied throughout.

How is your project going to share learning?

learning will be shared through the relevant Q Community specialist groups