Outpatient Services
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Outpatients services cover a wide range of specialties within acute trusts and are responsible for a large amount of activity within the acute sector, with 93.9 million attended outpatient appointments in England in 2016/17 (NHS Digital, 2017). Despite this level of activity and the corresponding sums of money being invested in services, there is limited benchmarking information available for the Outpatients service.
The Outpatients project aims to provide benchmarked analytics across Outpatient departments for the first time, by looking at the detailed workings of Outpatient departments in Acute Trusts. The project includes profiling of service models, access and availability, activity, workforce, finance and quality. Specific deep-dive areas include referral and clinic management, appointment slot issues, IT systems and overdue follow-ups.
This project is for all providers of Outpatient services. Subscribing members will receive:
- Access to a benchmarking toolkit, allowing you to benchmark your service across hundreds of metrics
- A bespoke dashboard report outlining key messages and metrics, which compares your local position against nationally reported positions
- A high-level report outlining key messages and metrics for outpatient services nationally
- Good practice compendium of information supplied by members describing the innovative practice they are undertaking in this area.
- Attendance at the Outpatients event, where the initial findings from the project will be presented, as well as good practice and national speakers
2017/18 benchmarking project
The Outpatients benchmarking project launched in the 2017/18 work programme and was open to all acute providers, 64 organisations submitted data for the project, with 71 submissions. Submissions cover English Trusts and Welsh University Health Boards (UHB). Project outputs include a national summary report, bespoke report, online toolkit and good practice compendium.
Download a summary of the project together with the 2017 highlights.
2018/19 benchmarking project
The Outpatients benchmarking project will take place again in 2018, collecting 2017/18 data. See project timetable for dates.
For queries about this project, please contact Chris McAuley.
