ICS Update September 2022
PIFU for better outpatient care
As we know, Covid-19 inspired the speedy take-up of a range of efficiency-focused delivery approaches. Whilst patient initiated follow-up (PIFU) was not a new approach to outpatient care, its take-up was a positive change for increasing choice and flexibility for patients accessing outpatient services.
PIFU empowers patients to take control of their own care. It ensures they can see a specialist sooner than planned if they need to, as well as avoid an unnecessary trip to hospital if they have no need to be seen. It also helps clinicians manage their waiting lists in a safe and effective way, meaning fewer appointments of low clinical value, freeing up time to support the patients most in need.
Allowing patients to choose when they are followed up with is doing the right thing for patients and, at the same time, is helping trusts to reduce their waiting lists and get more patients seen. Clinical task management also enables trusts to better manage their workforce as they can see the skills and experience needed to undertake tasks. It enables workforce redesign, promotes multidisciplinary team working, and boosts morale, leading to better rostering.
The implementation of PIFU should be encouraged – it ticks all the boxes; what is right for patients in today’s age, for staff, and for the long-term sustainability of outpatient services. Indeed, in Somerset, our solution has driven a time-saving of 91 minutes per clinician per shift on out-of-hours shifts, which you can read more about here.
In this month’s ICS newsletter, we look at some of the recent news and information surrounding PIFU. If you’d like to discuss any of these further, or have questions regarding how Liaison Workforce can support your PIFU solution, please get in touch at info@liaisongroupold.com
Webinar: Digital tools enabling safe PIFU to release capacity
Join our upcoming webinar on PIFU to find out more
Hear how Infinity Health, a Liaison Workforce partner, is working with Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NNUH) on the NHS’s most ambitious outpatients project.
The project aims to move up to 50% of its outpatient follow-up list onto PIFU pathways and is understood to be more ambitious than NHSE’s official PIFU pilot projects. Working in partnership with DrDoctor, a patient communications platform, helps take the project and PIFU beyond the basics to a more advanced model.
Improving the safety and efficiency of PIFU is a primary focus of Infinity Health, and it is supporting the first wave of trusts in the national pilot programme to digitise Patient initiated follow-up and Personalised Outpatients lists, to release capacity for the NHS’s elective recovery plan.
Infinity Health Clinical Director, Dr Jo Garland, and CEO, Elliott Engers, will be discussing how this innovative solution can support NHS organisations to tackle the elective care backlog safely and efficiently.
Date: Tuesday 4th October 2022
Time: 1pm – 2pm
Cost: Free for NHS organisations
Sir Jim Mackey calls for industrial rollout of patient initiated follow ups to end 78-week waits
Sir Jim Mackey said that patients at trusts with long waiting lists should no longer think “they have to go to their local hospital” for outpatient appointments.
“I do believe strongly that we really need to have a go at inverting the outpatient model, and for trusts to have a go at doing their version of what Norfolk and Norwich are doing.”
Speaking to the HSJ recently, Sir Jim Mackey said that patients at trusts with long waiting lists should no longer think “they have to go to their local hospital” for outpatient appointments, but should instead be offered virtual consultations elsewhere in the country where there is greater capacity.
Following NHSE’s announcement that the first elective recovery plan milestone of eliminating two-year waiters has been met, with the number of 104-week waiters at the end of last month reduced to 2,777 and the target “virtually” achieved, the focus now shifts to reducing the waiting list for those waiting 78-weeks plus by March 2023.
Sir Jim Mackey stated: “There still is a lot to work through [on virtual outpatients], we’re going to be testing the concept… We need to work through how all the wiring and plumbing needs to work. For example, what happens if the patient needs a diagnostic locally, having seen a clinician virtually in another part of the country?
“It would be great also to try and stimulate more of a consumer drive on this – encouraging patients to ask about virtual outpatients when the waits locally may be too long, so they don’t just think they have to go to their local hospital. I think this could really help shift the model if we can get it right.”
He also refreshed his calls for patient initiated follow ups (PIFU) to be rolled out on an industrial scale.
Sir Jim said: “I do believe strongly that we really need to have a go at inverting the outpatient model, and for trusts to have a go at doing their version of what Norfolk and Norwich are doing.”
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals Foundation Trust is currently overseeing the NHS’s most ambitious PIFU programme, with Liaison Group partners, Infinity Health, providing the task management platform to the project, where the Trust has categorised around half of its outpatient follow-up list as “possible or probable opportunities” for patient-initiated pathways.
To find out more about Liaison Workforce’s mii Tasks solution, powered by Infinity Health, and how the task management platform can support patient initiated follow ups, please get in touch at info@liaisongroupold.com
Super September aims to accelerate delivery of the elective recovery plan
A message sent to trusts by NHSE said that the ‘Super September’ initiative should encourage “creative options that can free up resource” to accelerate the delivery of the elective recovery plan.
“It is likely that the increased use of patient initiated follow ups (PIFU) will be a significant feature of the initiative.”
You are likely to be aware that NHS England has encouraged trusts to deliver a ‘Super September’ of accelerated elective recovery plans. A message sent to trusts by NHSE said that the ‘Super September’ initiative should encourage “creative options that can free up resource” to accelerate the delivery of the elective recovery plan.
According to latest figures, the overall elective waiting list stands at 6.6m, a number which has grown in part as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on occupancy and staff availability.
It is likely that the increased use of patient initiated follow ups (PIFU) will be a significant feature of the initiative. NHSE has set the target of cutting outpatient appointments by 25%, with PIFU at the front of that drive.
The NHS’s current most ambitious PIFU programme is being overseen at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals Foundation Trust, with Liaison Group partners, Infinity Health, providing the task management platform to the project. Speaking about the project, Infinity Health CEO, Elliott Engers, stated: “We are proud to provide clinicians with a tool that gives them the confidence to safely scale Patient Initiated Follow-Up to more of their patients. We expect this project to significantly reduce unneeded follow-up appointments and provide the capacity needed to reduce waiting times for patients.”
Other acceleration projects have included Super Saturdays, collaboration amongst paediatric hospitals via the Children’s Hospital Alliance, and more. PIFU sits alongside these activities as a fully flexible approach to give patients and their families or carers the ability to arrange their own follow-up appointments as and when they need them – helping systems to manage waiting lists and to see patients most in need, faster.
To find out more about Liaison Workforce’s mii Tasks solution, powered by Infinity Health, and how the task management platform can support PIFU, please get in touch at info@liaisongroupold.com
Further Reading – PIFU Round-Up
We’ve rounded up some further reading on PIFU…
We’ve rounded up some further reading on PIFU, which you can find here…
- Liaison Group: Trust’s time-saving solution has significant impact for out of hours doctors.
- NHS Confederation: Transforming PIFU through triage.
- Nuffield Trust: Patient-initiated follow-up: will it free up capacity in outpatient care?
- NHS England: Implementing patient initiated follow-up: guidance for local health and care systems
- Infinity Health: PIFU and virtual wards on the agenda for Infinity Health at HETT