Working to reduce waiting times and improve planned care | Latest updates

As an integrated care system in Northamptonshire we recognise we still have a lot further to go to reduce the time people have to wait for treatment to pre-pandemic levels and deliver NHS Constitution waiting time requirements.

We are proud of how our local NHS and care providers have come together across traditional organisational boundaries to make the best use of the resources we have available to us in the county. Through the pandemic we worked very closely with our independent sector colleagues, building on those relationships to ensure patients can be treated as quickly as possible.

We are in the process of developing an Integrated Care Northamptonshire Elective Care Collaborative that will bring together all the organisations involved in delivering planned care in Northamptonshire.

The Collaborative’s aim is to improve health outcomes and quality of life and address inequalities through all partners working together in a patient-centred approach, across the whole elective care system. 

We will do this by transforming delivery of services to enable patients to be supported to keep well at home or close to where they live, and where it is required to ensure equitable access to timely treatment for patients across the county. 

Our patients will have a seamless journey across our health and care providers, supported by excellent communication systems so they always know how they can get additional support if required.

Examples of how we have worked together as a system to manage waiting times for our population include:

• Mutual support: Northamptonshire’s performance against national waiting time targets for surgery has been among the best in the country. This has enabled us to offer support to neighbouring areas so that patients who had been waiting a very long time for treatment elsewhere have been seen and treated considerably sooner in Northamptonshire. For example, University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group (UHoN) has supported nearly 200 Northamptonshire residents who had been waiting for up to two years to have their procedures at University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL). These have been across the range of surgical specialties and in all providers in the county. Operational and Clinical leads from UHoN have worked very closely with counterparts at UHL to identify and contact suitable patients and arrange their treatment.
• Team working across the whole system: teams involved at every step of patients’ care and treatment pathways are working tirelessly to ensure patients are seen and treated as soon as possible. Teams have worked across organisational boundaries and with GPs, admin teams, therapists and diagnostic colleagues to try and maximise the combined resource we have available. We recognise we have a way to go and are establishing the ICN Elective Care Collaborative to build on this work and act as a whole system forum to set the direction for elective care going forward.  
• Validation: through the pandemic UHoN had a committed focus on clinical validation. This includes checking on a patient’s condition, establishing that patients still want treatment and providing good communication with patients, carers, and GPs. This has meant that as a system we have ensured that we have an up-to-date record of patient’s condition, and a validated waiting list, removing duplication and ensuring that patients still wish to have surgery.
• Digital transformation: we have invested in digital transformation through the national NHS Targeted Investment Fund to speed up and improve our elective care processes. Developments include an outpatient management system, increased digital patient communication, digital platforms for patient consent and pre-operative assessment, and a waiting list management tool.
• We have installed a state-of-the-art surgical robot at Northampton General Hospital (NGH) to support cancer surgery for Northamptonshire patients. This means more patients in our county can undergo complex cancer surgery here in Northamptonshire, and no longer have to undergo multiple journeys to hospitals in Leicester for treatment
• In December we will be opening a dedicated cardiac MRI machine at Kettering General Hospital (KGH) that will significantly improve the speed and quality of diagnosis of a range of heart problems, speeding up the journey to getting the accurate treatment patients need.
• Getting it Right First Time High Volume Low Complexity programme: we have signed up to the national programme of work aimed at rolling out best practice pathways of care for patients in orthopaedics/spinal, ophthalmology, urology, gynaecology and general surgery. We focus on the whole pathway from point of referral, through to treatment and post-operative care. This has involved colleagues from primary care, hospitals and community care services coming together to map processes and agree action plans to support our continued improvements.
• Delivery of new medical technologies including the ‘SecurAcath’ system for securing catheters, Greenlight laser to reduce the size of an enlarged prostate, and placental growth testing to help rule out pre-eclampsia in pregnant women

Polly Grimmett, Senior Responsible Officer for Integrated Care Northamptonshire’s developing Elective Care Collaborative, said: “We’ve engaged patients and colleagues and recognise we have more to do to join up care and reduce duplication. We also recognise we have challenges ahead. Like a lot of other integrated care systems, we are expecting this winter to be very challenging for capacity. We are working to 'ring fence elective capacity where possible to ensure those with the highest clinical need can continue to be treated. We have challenges with the number of vacancies we have in certain areas and are working with colleagues to showcase the great work and career options available to clinical staff in Northamptonshire.

“These challenges mean it’s more important than ever to work together as health and care organisations across our county and engage patients and colleagues in designing and improving services. The Elective Care Collaborative will support this, and we are excited about some of the future opportunities we will be delivering including a digital platform that will give us a detailed overview of the whole waiting list for Northamptonshire, Community Diagnostic Centres which will increase capacity for diagnostic tests in Northamptonshire and delivery of improvements to the treatment pathway for those who need cardiac care."