Since NHS Bedfordshire, Luton, and Milton Keynes ICS (NHS BLMK ICS) was formed in early 2020, their project in partnership with Consultant Connect has grown year on year. The service has significantly developed to cover approximately 1 million patients across the ICS area.
Advice & Guidance via Consultant Connect creates a meaningful impact on improving patient care in NHS BLMK ICS.
- 76% of Advice & Guidance calls result in an unnecessary trip to hospital being avoided (where outcomes are recorded)
- 74% of Teledermatology cases result in a referral being avoided (where outcomes are recorded)
Key usage stats*
Telephone Advice & Guidance
- 24 specialties (NCN providing non-local offering during the pandemic to ensure all specialties are covered for telephone A&G), including the GP Liaison line
- 91% average first-time connection rate
- 76% of calls result in an unnecessary trip to hospital being avoided (where outcomes are recorded)
Teledermatology
- Over 5,000 messages sent
- Over 7,500 photos shared
- Average response time: 3 hours 50 minutes
- 74% of cases result in a referral being avoided (where outcomes are recorded)
- 68% of practices across NHS BLMK ICS currently use the service
*All data correct as of 2nd February 2022
We recently spoke to Vickie Place, Planned Care Commissioning Manager at NHS BLMK ICS; she said:
“The success of the Bedfordshire telederm pilot in 2020 has since resulted in the wider roll-out of telederm across the whole of Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICS footprint. The service has been well received by GPs, and the timely support provided by the National Consultant Network has proven invaluable, even more so during a period of COVID recovery and restoration, making sure our patients are seen at the right place by the right clinicians at the right time. The team at Consultant Connect have been instrumental in showcasing the versatility of the service. They have attended many GP forums, attended various engagement meetings with operational and clinical staff, and participated in webinars. We hope to expand our Consultant Connect provision to include more local lines in the future, too, as we continue to explore new opportunities to expand the Consultant Connect provision.”
Ashley Backhouse, Account Manager at Consultant Connect comments:
“It has been a pleasure working with Vickie and her team. To be able to contribute to the huge efforts to support local GPs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been very rewarding. It has been great to see the expansion of services, particularly over the last 18 months. We have been able to work collaboratively with a variety of teams to put in place: patient discharge lines, patient-initiated follow-up calls, messaging options for Teledermatology and supporting secondary care teams with the additional platform of our National Consultant Network. This has enabled greater teamwork with a patient-centric approach that always ensured the most appropriate pathway was taken”.
Related links
NHS BLMK ICS uses Patient Initiated Follow Up (PIFU) services for MS and Epilepsy, which reduce unnecessary hospital visits and improve patient waiting times at Bedfordshire Hospitals. You can read the article and watch the short video clips showing clinicians talking about what impact this has made by clicking here.
NHS BLMK ICS provides an innovative nurse-led GP Liaison service via Consultant Connect. The service now handles over 750 calls per month. You can read all about how they successfully set this up and continue to achieve usage growth by clicking here.
