The resources below provide guidance and support to drive continuous improvement in elective care improvement.

Clinical

• Validation and Clinical Prioritisation Programme: The Validation and Clinical Prioritisation Programme supports healthcare providers with prioritising their waiting lists based on individual patient needs. Letters, frameworks and guidance are provided to support providers with prioritising their surgical (Clinical validation of surgical waiting lists: framework and support tools) and diagnostic (Clinical prioritisation of waiting lists for endoscopy and diagnostic procedures: framework and operational guidance) waiting lists.
• Clinical prioritisation of waiting lists for endoscopy and diagnostic procedures: Following the prioritisation of surgical waiting lists, the next stage of the programme is to prioritise patients who are waiting for a diagnostic procedure. This letter, framework and operational guidance is designed to support providers with this work.
• Clinical validation of surgical waiting lists

Data

• Real Time Data

Demand and capacity

• Demand and Capacity Elective care, core model: The core model is suitable for elective services with ‘simple’ pathways e.g. where patients are referred in, booked ahead (more than one day) for an appointment, and then move on to their next stage of treatment after being seen.

Digital

• Digital products that can aid elective recovery: This directory provides an overview of digital products that can be used to support elective recovery. The technologies include those that provide support for patients at home, improve communications, streamline pathways, release time for clinical teams and provide home based rehab.

Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT)

• Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) Academy of resources: Getting it Right First Time Academy of resources provide useful clinical resources including best practice pathways, case studies, and guidance documents for surgical and medical specialties as well as cross-cutting workstreams such as clinical coding and litigation.
  • GIRFT specialties and pathways
  • GIRFT High Volume Low Complexity (HVLC) programme

Outpatients

• Implementing patient initiated follow-up: guidance for local health and care systems
• Video consultations for secondary care
• Reducing did not attends (DNAs) in outpatient services
• Reducing did not attends in outpatient services
• Referral optimisation for people with skin conditions: Ensuring patients are seen in the right place, at the right time: Key principles of referral optimisation for patients with skin conditions.
• Ensuring equity of access to care when redesigning dermatology pathways: Guidance describing current inequity in accessing dermatology services and considers the potential for service redesign, particularly teledermatology and remote consultations, to further reduce access to care for some people with skin conditions; and suggests actions to provide equitable access.
• The two-week wait skin cancer pathway: innovative approaches to support early diagnosis of skin cancer as part of the NHS COVID-19 recovery plan

Letters

• Patient choice
• Elective care 2023/24 priorities