PATIENT TRANSPORT
Smooth patient flow key to NHS recovery post-COVID
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published a white paper earlier this year that sets out its legislative proposals for a Health and Care Bill. This article, by Andrew Pooley, managing director of national health and social care transport provider, ERS Medical, discusses how patient flow can help the NHS with these future proposals and contribute to its recovery from the pandemic.
The white paper, entitled Integration and Innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all,1
has several
proposals that build on the NHS’s recommendations in its Long Term Plan. Predictably, proposals in the paper are also based on the unprecedented challenges tackled by our health and social care system since the start of the pandemic, and the post-pandemic world that we continue to live in. There is no doubt that despite operating within an extremely challenging landscape, people working in our health and social care system have pulled together over the past 18 months. We’ve all seen, heard, or experienced, examples of individuals who have ‘gone above and beyond’, and delivered care in their own way. So, of course, it would be prudent to apply these examples as best practice for future proposals, given that many new and innovative ways of working reached fruition with agility and speed – unlike the pre-pandemic slow-burn characteristic often associated with bringing healthcare innovations to market. In fact, adaptability and pace are no longer the exception, but rather the norm.
A ‘burdened’ service
It’s no wonder then that the Government white paper aims to build on this, and to shape a healthcare system that is better able to serve people in a fast-changing world. However, the truth is that while we have one of the leading healthcare systems in the world, it is a burdened one, post- pandemic. The BMA’s recent analysis of monthly data releases by NHS England, ‘Pressure Points in the NHS’,2
highlights how
there is ‘A growing backlog of care’. It says: ‘Infection control measures and the ongoing diversion of resources towards COVID services during the ongoing second peak of hospitalisations mean that this backlog of care will take even longer to work through as it continues to accumulate. Many elective procedures have been cancelled as the second, worse wave of COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations sets in. This will cause
28 Health Estate Journal July 2021
A smooth flow of patients through the healthcare system means that patients are transported to and from appointments at as close to the expected appointment/ discharge time as possible, in turn preventing bottlenecks in the system.
strong further growth in the backlog. ‘Both the overall median waiting time for treatment, and the number of patients waiting over 18 weeks for treatment, increased again in February. Moreover, the number of patients waiting over one year for treatment has risen 240-fold since last February. This figure has consistently risen since March
2020.This 14-year high highlights the scale of unmet need occurring in a significant portion of the waiting list, with patients having been deprioritised for care and experiencing extremely long waits.’
An unprecedented backlog Social distancing measures, the need for an ever more stringent focus on infection control, and the resulting much tighter limits on the number of people that can be in a healthcare facility at any one time, plus, inevitably, the diversion of resources towards COVID services, mean that the backlog of outpatient attendances, specialist treatments, and elective procedures, is unprecedented – and it is going to take some time to work through the build-up and deliver these services to patients.
NHS England published its 2021/22 priorities and operational planning guidance in March this year.3
It sets the
priorities for the year ahead to restore services, which includes the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, supporting staff recovery, expanding primary care capacity, admission avoidance and efficient discharge, and collaborative, integrated working. Patient transport services impact and play a role in the success of nearly all these priorities, which is why it is critical that there is capacity in the system to deliver them. This needs to go beyond having a vehicle arrive on time to move a patient to their destination; that should exist at a minimum, and be a consequence of ‘smart’ service design and partnership working.
Non-emergency patient transport services (NEPTS) make a difference NEPTS-eligible patients who attend regular appointments, scheduled treatments, and outpatient services, need to reach their appointments in a timely fashion, and when they are discharged, need to be taken to their next point of
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