Agenda item

Simon Knight, Director of Planning and Performance was present for discussion of this item and made a presentation to the Committee, copy interleaved.

During consideration of the presentation the following main points were made –

·         The key strategic priorities for providing specialist care are cancer, neurosciences and women’s health with a strong high quality foundation in acute and emergency medicine, surgery and critical care

·         The 2014 in patient survey indicated UCLH second in the Peer London teaching hospitals rankings

·         The referral to treatment time of patients waiting less than 18 weeks is above target and has been consistently since November 2014

·         The percentage of diagnostic waits within 6 weeks have been too long in MRI and endoscopy however it is projected to reach target in MRI in January and endoscopy in February

·         UCLH are working closely with the Camden and Islington resilience groups to address A&E access times issues

·         There is a recovery plan in place to improve timely cancer care including -  timed pathways developed and more rapid escalation of delayed pathways, increase in bed and theatre capacity for prostate cancer, late referrals – working with referring trusts to improve pathways, increasing outpatient capacity to improve performance against the target to give an appointment within 2 weeks of referral and standardised training for MDT co-ordinators and trackers

·         Currently UCLH is not offering a fast enough appointment for patients with breast symptoms/suspected breast cancer and it is anticipated that this will be compliant with the two week standard by March. The problem was caused by an unexpected absence of two members of staff and measures were being taken to avoid this situation being repeated

·         There were significant financial challenges for the hospital and in 2015/16 there is a forecast defecit of around £32m and the 2016/17 tariff is not yet published but the forecast is again for a significant efficiency requirement equating to about 4/5% of the budget

·         In response to a question it was stated that investment had been made in information technology and this was not a significant issue in the forthcoming CQC inspection

·         In response to a question it was stated that the GP hubs set up at weekends should reduce the number of patients attending A&E

·         Work is carried out with Local Authorities to look at care packages that reduce stays in hospital and to reduce the number of visit patients need to make

·         In response to a question as to the waiting times for breast cancer treatment it was stated that UCLH recognised the need for improvement and had put in place measures to meet the target waiting time including recruitment of extra staff and enabling other staff to cover if there were staff difficulties

·         In relation to COPD work is being carried out with Camden to develop a contract model for providing more provision in the community and more details of this could  be provided to Members

·         In response to a question as to whether the delay in cancer treatment had an effect on outcomes it was stated that this was not the case and that the standard time set is 62 days and if a person is seen that is thought to have cancer then they are prioritised, however UCLH would provide details of the cases that have exceeded the 62 day target

RESOLVED;

That the presentation be noted and UCLH be requested to circulate responses to the matters raised above in relation to target times and the contract model for COPD referred to above