Publish date: 17 March 2023
The NHS has highlighted how Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance implemented an innovative digital tool to better manage endoscopy waiting times – and so improve patient outcomes.
An article on the NHS website details how the Alliance introduced the tool, called Thrive, to enable efficient planning of the endoscopy patient list in partnership with clinicians from St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals, and an IT provider.
The tool is based around the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) points system which takes into consideration the time needed to undertake a particula
r procedure.
This allows greater understanding of the nuance around the impact of procedure complexity on waiting times and a shared understanding of how the composition of a waiting list impacts the clinical skills and experience required to manage each patient on the list.
This ensures that service quality and equality of access remains central to managing endoscopy lists.
The success of the tool has led to it being adopted in most of the diagnostic units in Cheshire and Merseyside, with those remaining signed up to follow this year.
To read the article, see: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/implementing-a-cloud-based-productivity-monitoring-tool-to-facilitate-management-of-cancer-diagnostic-pathways-in-cheshire-and-merseyside/