A range of key GIRFT metrics to help gastroenterology teams gauge their performance and work to recover services impacted by the pandemic are now available on the Model Health System.
More than 70 metrics relating to endoscopy, hepatobiliary, luminal gastroenterology and nutrition services can now be found by logging in at https://model.nhs.uk/ and navigating to the GIRFT clinical metrics compartment for the specialty.
Trust and system users can see their performance in areas such as emergency admission rates for patients with inflammatory bowel disease, the day case rate for ascitic drains or the percentage of colonoscopies carried out as an inpatient, as well as benchmarking against their peers and learning from best practice.
These metrics can be used alongside the GIRFT national report for gastroenterology (September 2021) to help implement the report’s 24 recommendations and actions.
Author of the report and the GIRFT clinical lead for gastroenterology, Dr Beverly Oates, said: “I am delighted that we are now able to share our GIRFT data in this way on the Model Health System, allowing trust and system teams to see where there are opportunities for improvement and track their progress over time, as the data refreshes.
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“We know that gastroenterology and endoscopy services were hit hard by the pandemic, and having this rolling data readily available can keep track of our progress on recovery, helping teams work towards managing demand and reducing waiting times, while also improving safety and quality of care.”
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The new metrics have been drawn from GIRFT’s national review of gastroenterology services, in which Dr Oates met with all 129 NHS gastroenterology teams in England. The resulting national report offered practical solutions for managing the demand for services and optimising the capacity of units, with a particular focus on meeting challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the backlog of patients waiting for endoscopic procedures and gastroenterology clinic appointments.
GIRFT now has well over 1,000 metrics on the Model Health System across 15 specialties, including the high volume low complexity (HVLC) specialties of ENT, general surgery, gynaecology, ophthalmology, trauma and orthopaedics (including spinal surgery), and urology.
