Reviewing Patients on Waiting Lists
Does anyone do any reporting or reviewing of patients waiting on a waiting list? This came up in a 2ndry/1ry care interface meeting. We were challenged did we know how many of our patients were waiting for something - how long - what were they waiting for - where they were in the pathway - e.g. awaiting first OP/ awaiting diagnostics etc. Simple answer was no one in the room did this sort of analysis from our side in any depth - let alone review the list and see if there were any alternatives to shorten it.
A few years ago we did a Peer2Peer referral review service that worked (IMHO) well and offered advice to referrers as an alternative to the referral- I can explain this more if needed. However that stopped being funded and we have fallen back to everyone referring their own patients with no Peer review/support which I think is a mistake as not everyone has the same level of knowledge/confidence and some must over refer for this reason but an understandable one given the reactive nature of ‘GPland’ at the moment and there is no time for this in house work.