Published this week, NHS England’s ‘Reforming Elective Care for Patients’ plan focuses heavily on leveraging specialist Advice & Guidance (A&G) and clinical triage to increase productivity and reduce demand, helping to ensure patients receive their care from the right healthcare professional in the right place at the right time.
As the plan is still brand new we’re speaking with NHS partners to better understand the challenges they will have to manage to access the additional funding relating to A&G and clinical validation and publish indicative guidance on our findings next week. We’d love to hear what you think about ‘Reforming Elective Care for Patients’ too; to share your thoughts, drop us an email at info@consultantconnect.org.uk or call us on 01865 261 467.
In the meantime, we’ve extracted some key elements:
GPs to receive £20 for every A&G request submitted;
‘In an expansion of the current approach, GPs will receive £20 per A&G request, to recognise the importance of their role in ensuring patient care takes place in the most appropriate setting.’
Hospitals to receive a new A&G tariff;
‘NHS England will ensure both primary care and secondary care are funded to deliver Advice and Guidance (A&G), by splitting the existing elective tariff to deliver better outcomes for patients.’
Increased A&G and clinical triage a fundamental part of reforms;
‘Advice and Guidance, validation and remote monitoring are examples of newer ways of working that provide care for patients in a more personalised way. Taking our lead from innovative systems, we will develop and test tariffs and payment models in 2025/26 for widespread adoption by commissioners and providers in 2026/27 and beyond.’
Funding targeted at activity that reduces a patient’s wait for care;
‘NHS England will update the Payment Scheme to reflect elective priorities, including with a stronger focus on activity that directly ends a patient’s wait for their care, and by developing, testing and introducing relevant tariffs throughout the duration of this plan.’
Financial incentives for hospitals reducing waiting lists quickest;
‘NHS England will run a capital incentive scheme for providers that improve the most in meeting RTT standards.’
Increased use of teledermatology;
‘Cancer pathway improvement work will focus on improving cancer pathway efficiency by using teledermatology for urgent suspected skin cancer referrals.’
How will you deliver this work?
We can support you in delivering this work via our platform and can also assist with A&G and clinical validation on e-RS. If you have any questions or to find out more we’d be happy to help, email us at info@consultantconnect.org.uk or call us on 01865 261 467.
About Consultant Connect
Since Consultant Connect started over 9 years ago, our work has expanded to include:
- e-RS Connect A&G worklist: enabling secondary care clinicians to view, respond to, and action their e-RS A&G worklists in less than half the time.
- Clinical resource for A&G: Our network of remote NHS consultants can be brought in for short or long-term support to provide A&G (on e-RS or other systems).
- Clinical capacity for referrals: Our consultant-led referral triage and validation service brings in the expertise of NHS consultants on our network, acting as ‘virtual’ locums’ to safely prioritise and reduce waiting lists.
- Rich reporting already supports areas to unlock the ERF: our integration with NHS EROC reporting means all A&G activity is automatically submitted to EROC each month, removing the reporting burden from you.
