NHS England and the DHSC has expressed its commitment to reducing bureaucracy and improving ways of working across all providers and commissioners of NHS care.  The aim is to achieve the most seamless care for patients while ensuring the most effective use of NHS resources. This can be challenging when working across multiple sectors, and particularly for patients with the most complex medico-social needs.

An initiative called the ‘Red Tape Challenge’ builds on and accelerates existing activity to improve the interface between primary and secondary care, such as how referrals are made and managed, patient discharge and how different parts of the health service communicate with each other.

To support this, GIRFT has worked with NHS England’s primary care team to better understand the current issues across the primary and secondary care interface.

GIRFT programme lead Professor Tim Briggs, and National Director for Clinical Improvement and Elective Recovery, and Dr Claire Fuller, NHS England’s Medical Director for Primary Care, visited 22 Primary Care Network (PCN) sites to begin conversations on improving data quality in general practice, and to learn about the everyday pressures they face and how primary and secondary care work together more effectively.  

A key observation from the visits was just how much work is generated in primary care as patients transition to and from secondary care.  Many systems have been working hard to improve relationships between primary care and secondary care for some time with many fantastic examples of improved care.

Building on this, GIRFT working with NHS England’s primary care team has developed principles regarding the process and flows between primary and secondary care. The aim is to establish standards for teamwork that ensure timely and effective patient care, ultimately relieving pressure on emergency departments and reducing elective waiting times.