Leeds Teaching Hospitals have outlined a new plan to reduce outpatient waiting lists in a bid to free up appointments for those who really need them. The plan will see the Trust committed to contacting more than 20,000 people on their non-urgent waiting lists including those who have been waiting more than three months for a new appointment.
Patients will be contacted and their conditions will be checked with the Trust then offering further appointments if needed. Any patient who does not need or want an appointment will be removed from the list.
A pilot scheme has taken place in one specialist area which saw 20 percent of people either saying they neither needed an appointment as their symptoms had changed or they had pursued other treatment.
These people were able to be removed, making room for new and follow-up appointments, which with waiting lists of around 130,000 people the Trust say, could create a big impact.
Mr Raj Mukherjee, Clinical Director for Outpatients at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We’re positive we can make a big impact by really focusing our Outpatients activity in October. Approximately 80% of our patients need care in Outpatients and we are often the first or most frequent interaction our community has with their hospital.
“We deliver more than 1.4m appointments annually, which is huge, but we want to and need to do more to improve equal access to care, to simplify our patient journey and to ensure this is to the same level of quality across all services. The digital innovations we have adopted are starting to positively make their mark on our outpatients and we’re working towards delivering a positive and equal Outpatients’ experience with shorter wait times across all our hospital sites.”
The longest waiters will be prioritised this October, with administrative teams from the Trust Outpatients services calling to reconnect with patients. Clinicians will then make follow-up reviews and appointments and hold additional clinics at the weekends.
Patient initiated follow-up (PIFU) will also receive a strong focus, the Trust will be supporting patients with long-term conditions to take control of their own health and access care in a way that fits their life. Patients who meet the criteria will be actively involved in managing their own follow-up care.
The October focus is part of a wider Operational Transformation Strategy across the Trust. Trusts are working to return services to better than pre-pandemic levels, improving the quality and timeliness of care while delivering first-class patient experience and improving outcomes.
Over the past year the use of 24-hour robotic programming software to automate and improve back-office administration has saved more than 9,000 hours of human time across eight Outpatient services, accessing multiple systems amongst many other time-consuming tasks. This has freed the administration team to focus on more meaningful engagement with patients, such as telephone calls and liaison.
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