King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

South East London Acute Provider Collaborative e-bulletin - February 2023

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust sent this bulletin at 02-02-2023 12:11 PM GMT

Dental network levels uneven waits with new referral model

UNEVEN waiting times for oral surgery patients in South East London are reducing following the launch of a new referral pathway. – which is poised to be a blueprint for other specialties.

A single point of access has been created, which ensures all oral surgery referrals from the community to both Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s are received centrally, and shared between the two Trusts.

As part of this closer collaboration between the dental teams, patients may still choose which Trust they want to be treated at. However, there is also now an option for patients to select the shortest waiting time, which could be at either Trust.

Historically, there were as many as six different referral routes for oral surgery patients, with a range of forms depending on the Trust and the urgency. Now referrals are submitted using the online SmartSurvey form.

Under the previous system, big disparities had arisen in waiting times between hospital sites across the two Trusts - particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic.

To tackle this, long-waiting patients were given the option of transferring their care to the other provider – but this sometimes proved confusing or worrying for patients.

Our new approach increases equity of access, gives patients more choice and control over their care – and should help reduce the need to transfer patients later on.

The success of this work by our dental network – one of seven high-volume surgical networks to improve care throughout the patient journey – has been achieved thanks to a real collective effort.

Administration and operation teams both played key roles in working with clinicians to develop the agreed route, and then closing down the others.

We are now identifying new specialities where we can replicate this model.

At a glance - What is the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative?

Who we are, and what we do

OUR partnership brings together, and pools the expertise, of all the NHS Trusts which deliver acute hospital services across South East London. These include:

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust - Guy's Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital; Evelina London Children's Hospital; Royal Brompton Hospital, Harefield Hospital; plus community services in Lambeth and Southwark and a number of services at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, including cancer services and a kidney treatment centre.

King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - King's College Hospital; Princess Royal University Hospital; Orpington Hospital; plus services operated at Beckenham Beacon and Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust - Lewisham Hospital; Queen Elizabeth Hospital; plus community services and services at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup.

We coordinate the efforts across all these providers, their services and their people in pursuit of the triple aim: Better health for everyone; Better care for all patients; Efficient use of NHS resources.

We have a growing number of clinical networks co-creating home-grown solutions to meet these objectives. These currently include Critical Care, Dental, Endoscopy, ENT, General Surgery, Gynaecology, Imaging, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Pharmacy and Urology.

In addition, we have several dedicated work programmes also improving care through the patient journey. These cover Community Diagnostics Centres, Theatres and Non-Admitted Patients.

Key updates

Trusts unite in backing successful extra CT scanner bid

THOUSANDS of people in South East London are to benefit from shorter diagnostic waiting times after a bid for £1.9 million to buy and install a new CT scanner at University Hospital Lewisham (UHL) was given the go-ahead.

Read more

Boost for men's health with new-look specialist service

THE APC’S Urology Network has played a key role in the successful launch of a new supra-regional urological service.

Read more

News round-up - in brief

A BID to become part of a new Innovators scheme for provider collaboratives; praise from London region colleagues for our work in driving down long waits for tests and treatment; and the appointment of a new senior Finance Lead are among the highlights of our latest round-up.

More below.

Innovator bid

WE have launched a bid to become part of NHS England’s Provider Collaborative Innovators scheme.

Our application is backed by leaders of all three Trusts, and fully supported by colleagues from the Integrated Care Board.

The initiative has been launched “to support sustainable improvement in the quality and efficiency of patient care across the country through collaboration and clinical leadership”.

As part of this, NHSE will provide hands-on support for 7-8 selected provider collaboratives to accelerate the benefits they can deliver to their populations.

There are more than 40 provider collaboratives in the NHS and the majority of them have applied – so the selection process will be highly-competitive.

Hailed as “a unique opportunity to shape the future of service improvement”, NHSE has said the scheme will also provide a strong platform and community of practice to help spread the benefits to every area.

An announcement of the successful bidders is imminent. The support scheme for successful applicants will run through to March 2024.

To read our bid in full, please click here.

Pathway praise

APC programmes and clinical networks support ever-closer working across our three Trusts - especially in driving down long waits for tests and treatment.

London region colleagues have praised this reduction rate, saying: “SEL have managed their backlog in an impressive way” and also highlighted the Community Dermatology pathway as an excellent example of shared learning across all three trusts.

Congratulations and thanks to all of the many teams and individuals who are contributing to the success of this work.

New Finance Lead

WE are delighted to announce that Victoria Fairhurst has been appointed to the position of Guy's and Thomas' Director of Planning and APC Finance.

Her dual role will mean she is focused on coordinating planning activities within Guy's and St Thomas' and working with colleagues across the Acute Provider Collaborative (APC) to develop our financial approval processes and take forward the APC finance agenda.

She will report to Steve Davies in his dual roles as Trust CFO and lead CFO for the APC; she will also be part of the APC Delivery team and the Guy's and St Thomas' finance leadership team.

Victoria has recently been on secondment at the Trust as merger programme director and joins us from NHS England where she has been a director in NHSI/Monitor for many years. She has a wide range of experience across merger and acquisitions, financial special measures, due diligence and regulation.

Website unveiled

OUR APC now has a dedicated web presence, as part of the overall South East London ICS website, where you can find out more about our aims, structure and key work streams.

Primary and community clinical leads take up roles

FOLLOWING a successful recruitment drive, we have further strengthened our team with the appointment of a range of new primary care and community clinical leads.

Working across placed-based teams and APC programmes, they each add an extra dimension to our work and will play a key role in contributing to our future success. Further appointments are planned.

You can meet the current team and see their contact details in this helpful overview:

South East Primary and Community Clinical Leads

Interview with... Dr Alexandra Baker

ALEXANDRA is our newly-appointed GP Lead for Non-Admitted Care. She is working with us and the South East London Integrated Care Board on how we transform areas such as advice and guidance, referral pathways, outpatients’ services, and bridging the gap between primary and secondary care. Here, she shares early thoughts on the role – plus her initial objectives.

Read more

South East London Collaborative footer v3

This e-bulletin is sent on behalf of the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative. Please share it with colleagues or teams who you think may find it of interest. For further information please contact Corporate Communications.