Professor Tim Briggs, Chair of the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme and National Director of Clinical Improvement for the NHS, has spoken of the programme’s ongoing priorities as GIRFT strengthens its partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement.

In a video message to mark GIRFT’s transfer from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust to NHS England and NHS Improvement, Professor Briggs speaks of the successes the programme has enjoyed in its time with RNOH, and how GIRFT has now extended its scope to support the NHS with the recovery and restoration of services affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since it began, the programme has successfully reviewed 40 surgical and medical specialties across the NHS in England. Each is delivering a national report, giving clinical teams and their hospital trusts the insight to reduce variation in patient outcomes and improve care.

GIRFT’s embedded core work of driving improvements in patient care by reviewing specialties and scrutinising performance through data analysis is set to continue, with a renewed focus on tracking the implementation of national report recommendations at trust, system and national level.

In addition, the programme is playing a key role in NHS England and NHS Improvement’s elective recovery programme through the rollout of the High Volume Low Complexity (HVLC) programme, supporting systems and regions to address delays exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Briggs said: “There’s no doubt that GIRFT has influenced a cultural shift across the NHS, with clinicians and managers now taking ownership of their data, questioning their outcomes and taking the necessary action to improve.

“Over the years, the programme has developed a strong credibility as an effective programme for enabling trusts to deliver clinical improvement and providing the evidence to influence for policy change. That credibility and our proven methodology means GIRFT is now ideally placed to support the national priority – to restore elective care and make sure patients can get their operations more quickly as the NHS recovers from the unprecedented events of 2020/21.

“We are looking forward to an exciting new era for the programme, sharing our knowledge and expertise more widely to enable systems to improve for their population’s needs.”