Outpatients
Our support offer
GIRFT is supporting trusts in England to diagnose, reset and restart delivery of outpatient care and help reduce waiting times.
Harnessing the success of GIRFT’s Further Faster methodology, our team offers targeted support to colleagues to identify and implement measures which can help achieve NHSE’s national priorities of improving the percentage of patients waiting 18 weeks for treatment to 65% and the percentage waiting 18 weeks for a first appointment to 72% (with every trust expected to deliver a minimum 5% point improvement), and reducing the proportion of people waiting over 52 weeks for treatment to less than 1% by March 2026.
This work is overseen by Professor Tim Briggs, GIRFT programme lead and NHS England National Director for Clinical Improvement and Elective Recovery, and utilises the expertise of leading clinicians.
Its scope is led by the challenges of the participating trusts but focuses mainly on six key areas: pre-referral, booking and scheduling, appointment delivery, environment/clinic spaces, digital and technology, and clinical pathways.
The aim is to improve outpatient department delivery, including clinic utilisation and standardised clinic templates to help unlock outpatient capacity and reduce waiting times.
- Outpatient Clinical Advisors
Professor Jaspal Phull
Outpatient clinical advisor for GIRFT
Professor Jaspal Phull is Chief of Service for the Surgery and Family Health Care Groups at Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group. He is an honorary Professor of Urology at Lincoln Medical School and a consultant urological surgeon specialising in robotic pelvic and renal oncological surgery. He also works as part of a small team of NHS consultants who support the GIRFT Surgical Hub Accreditation visits.
Professor Phull has a special interest in medical leadership development and evidence-based pathways. He has previously chaired the Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon and Gloucestershire Urological Cancer Advisory Group (2016-2022) as well as chairing quality surveillance peer reviews of urological cancer services for NHSE.
Dr Gui Tran
Outpatient clinical advisor for GIRFT
Resources
GIRFT resources have been developed with condition-specific advice for a number of specialties to help services tackle escalating demand for outpatient appointments with a focus on DNAs and driving up patient initiated follow-up (PIFU).
Resources include:
- operational outpatient guidance, including standardised clinic templates;
- an outpatient guide covering 17 specialties, produced in collaboration with the Outpatient Recovery and Transformation Team;
- a number of individual specialty specific outpatient guides;
- toolkits and templates to streamline the Advice and Guidance process, and other guidance which can help providers working to transform their outpatient services.
- GIRFT outpatient guidance by specialty
- GIRFT operational outpatient guidance
- Further Faster handbooks: all specialties
- VIDEO: How to make the most of GIRFT Advice & Guidance templates
- GIRFT/OPRT outpatient webinar recordings
- NHS IMPACT improvement guide: outpatient services
- OPRT video explainer on PIFU
- OPRT resources on FutureNHS
- Outpatients News
Academy Outpatient Resources
Clinically-led ophthalmology Outpatient guide>
Reducing waiting times for cataract surgery through innovative community-based provision>
Biosimilar ranibizumab summary guide>
Faster turnover cataract pathway at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust>
Implementing ranibizumab biosimilar (ongavia) at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust>
Implementing ranibizumab biosimilar (ongavia) at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust>
Clinically-led orthopaedic surgery Outpatient guide>
Management of DNA’s at NNUH NHS FT>
Implementation of PIFU at West Suffolk NHS FT>
Trauma and orthopaedic PIFU at Homerton Healthcare NHS FT>
Non-clinical validation of long waiters at UHL NHS Trust>
Wye Valley NHS Trust – WALANT in an outpatient setting>