Elective recovery
Implementing elective recovery plans
The Elective Recovery Taskforce has outlined a plan to “turbocharge” recovery of the backlog in elective care, while empowering patients to choose where they are treated. The independent sector will have a key role to play. CSJ provides a summary of the key plans and responses from the healthcare sector.
The Elective Recovery Taskforce, chaired by Minister Will Quince, brought together leading voices from across the NHS, independent healthcare sector and patient representatives to find solutions to tackle the growing backlog. The elective waiting list has grown by a staggering 61%, from 4.57 million to 7.47 million since February 2020. The Taskforce has agreed to work together to implement action in four core areas: l Empowering patients to exercise their right to choose.
l Delivering post-pandemic recovery. l Enabling longer-term system sustainability. l Delivering ‘the plan’ and to ‘go further’.
The Taskforce initially published its “delivery plan” for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care, in February 2022,1
and
subsequently announced an “implementation plan”, in August 2023, setting out practical steps to make the plan a reality.2
Maximising the use of
independent sector capacity is a key part of the strategy, while care for patients will remain free at the point of delivery.
Right to choose The Elective Recovery Implementation Plan points out that patients “have a right to choose their provider of consultant-led services, at the point of referral” and further identifies barriers to patients to exercising this right, including: l Clinician and patient knowledge of their rights.
l An issue with the electronic referral system (e-RS) where there were two menus to choose services from, which added complexity to referrers viewing all available providers.
l A lack of reporting data on whether patient choice has been offered consistently.
l Technological barriers to patients being able to manage their care pathway. In February 2023, NHS England expanded the
‘My Planned Care’ service to enable patients to compare waiting times across all providers within a specialty. The NHS’s My Planned Care platform enables patients to compare different providers in their local areas, and the expected waiting times at each. Earlier this year, independent sector providers were added to the platform, enabling patients to compare average waiting times between NHS and independent sector providers.2 To support this ambition, the following action points have been established: l Following improvements to the e-RS, referrers can now see all potential healthcare providers in a single menu that can be sorted by waiting times, informing conversations with patients of the options available to them. NHS England has rolled out communications to GPs on the changes to e-RS to ensure choice is consistently offered at referral.
l Patients will be actively offered a shortlist of a minimum of five providers, where clinically appropriate, and patients are able to see provider quality, waiting time and distance to
travel in ‘My Planned Care’.
l The NHS is making further changes to make it easier for patients to manage their appointments by rolling out patient engagement portals across England. Once the portals are established and linked up with the NHS App, patients will be able to view their appointments and request to change their appointment. By September 2024, 90% of Trusts are expected to have come on board with this.
l The Digital Mutual Aid System (DMAS) is an existing national system that facilitates mutual aid requests and offers between providers, including independent sector providers (over 99% of independent sector providers are signed up). NHS England is developing a patient-initiated DMAS that will enable patients to request to move provider. From the end of October 2023, all patients who have waited more than 40 weeks without having had their first outpatient appointment will be able to initiate a request to transfer to another provider.
l The Department of Health and Social Care September 2023 I
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com 21
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