Coventry and Warwickshire ICS has shared insight into its work supporting people at home and improving efficiencies around cardiology care, highlighting how initiatives are run, outcomes including specific data, and wider impact on the system.
On how patients have been supported to return home following hospital stays, the ICS shares how South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) and Warwickshire County Council partnered to establish the community recovery service. With the service providing short-term intermediate care designed to help patients in regaining their independence, SWFT has reportedly seen an average reduction of 2.36 days in length of stay. Other outcomes include increasing the number of patients accessing rehabilitation and recovery serves by 154 percent in the first operational year; managing 3,036 community recovery service paths to establish it as “the primary discharge route for patients with new or increased care needs”, and receiving 100 percent positive reviews on the iWantGreatCare feedback platform (91 total reviews).
Coventry and Warwickshire reports that the service has addressed a gap in post-hospital care and “not only enhances patient experience but also contributes to the overall efficiency of healthcare delivery in Warwickshire”.
Additionally, the ICS has shared insight into its work to reduce cardiology waiting lists, involving auditing patients at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire with acute coronary syndrome care to identify how long the hospital admission process takes as well as any delays in the patient pathway. To tackle identified delays, the trust worked with the ICS to speed up referrals, increase the capacity for referral reviews and identify protected time for procedures to be undertaken as soon as possible, as well as piloting an inter-hospital transfer pathway to discharge suitable patients.
Following a review of the pilot, the ICS highlights that the number of patients breaching the 72-hour target for receiving care reduced from 26 percent to 10 percent; 86 percent of referrals were accepted within 24 hours; 45 percent of patients were transferred within four hours of ambulance arrival; and 76 percent of patients received their procedure within 24 hours of arriving at hospital, in comparison to 66 percent in 2023. Additionally, 83 percent of patients were discharged directly from the percutaneous coronary intervention centre, which the ICS notes reduces demand on ambulance transfers, and 59 beds were freed up across the ICS network.
Reducing waiting lists
Other examples of waiting list reduction in practice this year include a teledermatology pilot at Barts Health NHS Trust, which reportedly led to around 94 percent of people with suspected skin cancer being seen within two weeks at Whipps Cross Hospital; and another teledermatology service at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, which has seen dermatology services offered remotely to patients across community hospitals in Cornwall.
With Labour’s win of the 2024 general election, HTN explored the party’s manifesto with a view of what the win means for the NHS; click here to read Labour’s healthcare priorities, including a focus on cutting waiting times.
At the start of the year we also noted NHS England’s announcement that an average waiting time feature is to be introduced in the NHS App for patients referred into a specialty at NHS acute trusts.
Coventry and Warwickshire in the spotlight
Other news from the region includes the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire’s EPR go-live in June; and the launch of an electronic referral service for community opticians, which enables opticians to send referrals to a single point of access in the Coventry and Warwickshire Ophthalmology Co-ordination Service.
Taking a wider view, we explored digital and data in 2024 across each ICS region; click here to read our feature on the Midlands.
