How Hospital Trust Intends to Meet 18-Week Target
By Emma Brady
Bosses at a Midlands hospital trust have explained how they intend to blaze a trail for other acute centres to meet the Government’s deadline to cut waiting lists to 18 weeks or less.
Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Manor Hospital, is one of 13 “early adopter” trusts in Britain which will be achieving the target by December.
After submitting a detailed bid to the Department of Health on what changes they planned to introduce to meet 12 months ahead of the country, the trust revealed how they would be financed and implemented.
Sarah-Jane Marsh, Wal-sall’s director of planning and productivity, explained no patients served by the trust should wait more than 18 weeks, after seeing their GP, to receive hospital treatment.
“The national deadline is for 100 per cent of patients to be seen within 18 weeks after they’ve been to their doctor, but as an early adopter we will hit that by the end of this year,” she said.
“We’ve been working very closely with Walsall Primary Care Trust, which means we’re doing everything together.
“The extra money needed to do this was factored into their budget for this financial year. That hasn’t happened in other areas which is why they they are unable to achieve this target ahead of schedule.”
Among the trust’s plans for providing a “smoother pathway to care” from a GPs surgery to local hospital, is an initiative to cut the amount of “to-ing and fro-ing”patients previously experienced while waiting for treatment.
Ms Marsh added: “We’re reorganising so, for example, if a GP wants access to a patient’s test results he will be able to get them in one go.
“Between now and December we’re working on that, to enable GPs to give patients all their test results on the same day, so they avoid countless trips to hospital.
“We’re also thinking about a one-stop clinic approach to help reduce these waiting times further.”
Larger trusts, such as Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust – which runs Heartlands and Soli-hull hospitals, will now be “learning lessons” from smaller trusts like Walsall and Herefordshire Hospitals.
Ian Cunliffe, Heart of England’s medical director, said: “We have been planning for the 18-week target for many months and learning lessons from the early adopter trusts.
“For all appointments we are already within or ahead of national targets. For example, our current wait for an outpatient appointment is nine weeks, while the national target is 11 weeks.
“The national target for diagnostic appointments is six weeks by March 2008 and we plan to achieve this well before the end of 2007. Overall, we will certainly achieve the 18-week target by December 2008.”
emma_brady@mrn.co.uk
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