QI 148 Improving Patient Flow across Urgent and Reablement Therapy

Abstract

Aim: 90% of Reablement patients to be seen with in 48 hours of receiving the referral (Monday – Friday) 100% Urgent Community Response (UCR) Therapy patients to be seen with in 48 hours of receiving the referral (Monday-Sunday). Following the publication of Urgent Community Response (UCR) guidance by NHSE in July 2021 CWPT has responded with the development of their own UCR team. This in turn was predicted to change the utilisation of therapy within the urgent offer. Patients need to be seen within the timescale specified by triage which can be 4-6 hours / 24 hours / 48 hours. The therapy team that responds to the urgent referrals also provides the on-going up to 6 weeks Reablement service. Any changes to the urgent response roster will have a knock-on effect on the reablement offer. Therefore, we needed to explore how to maximise capacity to fulfil the requirements of both Urgent and Reablement Therapy using QI.

Tools Used: PDSA Cycles - https://aqua.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/qsir-pdsa-cycles-model-for-improvement.pdf; Driver Diagram - https://aqua.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/qsir-driver-diagrams.pdf.

Project Impact: Waiting times for Reablement patients January 2022 = 3 weeks. Patient facing activity time during every working shift varied across the team from 42% to 99% against a target of 67%. Developed a way of measuring waiting times for UCR patients.

Next Steps: Daily monitoring of: Waiting list /Capacity and demand / Patient flow. Scoping what capacity can be released from both clinical / non clinical perspective to support service improvements and patient flow, followed by, scoping funding for Patient Flow Coordinator to release further clinical capacity. Preparing for AHP job planning. Equitable workload across the services. Plan for future workload for the service e.g., trajectory of wait lists being cleared.