Consultancy Carnall Farrar Ltd have concluded that the new Labour government could restore the 18 week waiting time standard by 2029, as promised, but only if they transform the way care is planned and delivered.

A lot of their proposed solutions are digital. With better information, the NHS could care for more patients in undisrupted, low-complexity settings such as virtual appointments and elective hubs. It could avoid patients being called in for wasted appointments because a pre-requisite step had been missed. It could keep patients and GPs better informed about progress, and avoid common data errors that mean patients are listed as waiting when they are not.

We agree. As specialists in elective pathway tracking and data quality, we have seen too many examples of inaccurate and fragmented NHS data causing problems for both patients and NHS staff. If staff have to spend a lot of time going into multiple IT systems to find out what is happening, then it’s difficult for them to know what the patient needs next.

We have solved this problem. At Insource, we automatically unify the necessary data into one place, to give staff a complete view of the patient pathway and what the patient needs next. So staff can spend less time grappling with data, and more time managing patients efficiently towards treatment and discharge.

Carnall Farrar mention the Federated Data Platform as part of the solution, but it also relies on good data to do its job. We have the experience and technology to feed high quality, unified data to the FDP so that you can get the best from it. You can even choose case-by-case whether the FDP or alternative tools are the best ones to use, and rest assured that you are using the same high-quality data either way.

If you would like to deliver the 18 week standard without avoidable increases in activity, then get in touch. We will be happy to talk through the many options for using data to streamline elective waits.