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Urgent and emergency care transformation
Rapidly improving Urgent and Emergency Care performance by 28% while supporting sustainable changes and surpassing targets.
Challenge
The Trust engaged Practicus to deliver an Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) Transformation Programme with a view to improving its performance and support delivery of its Winter Plan for 2022.
What we did
We performed an assessment of the current UEC system and its performance levels against NHSE standards to understand the baseline performance and identify areas that required prioritisation for improvement modelling. Six workstreams were identified together with action plans, goals and milestones.
Working closely with clinicians and the Executive Board a Winter Plan was created using current activities and a variety of data sets. Achievable and measurable action plans where then incorporated into the plan with targets mapped against deliverable timeframes. The plan mapped a trajectory for improvement by workstream with monthly targets and owners – using a dashboard allowing for greater accessibility to data. This also involved the scoping of a new ERP system for the Trust with the aim of improving data collection and reporting.
Part of the delivery included modelling the impact of combining Urgent Treatment Clinics with Acute Front Door and assessing where resources could be used more efficiently, with streamlined patient flow pathways.
Outcome
As a result of the work, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust was named as one of the most improved Trusts in the country.
It saw a significant change in the performance of its service delivery within UEC. Patient flow management was vastly improved at the ‘acute front door’ where booking in and out for inpatients was streamlined.
Tangible improvements were made in its 4-hour waiting time target with a 5% improvement rate month on month throughout 2022 and 2023, regularly exceeding its future monthly targets 2 months early. This resulted in a performance improvement increase of 28% since December 2022 and continued surpassing targets throughout 2023.
Due to the close partnership approach, greater trust was built with the Executive Board to push through the action plan and achieve targets. It created greater assurance for the continuance of improvements and provided a demonstrable track record of quality and performance in support of the Trust’s vision for the future.
The programme continues to work on improving patient care with focus turning towards Same Day Emergency Care to further improve efficiencies in waiting time standards and patient flow through UEC.
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