NHS England reintroduces performance management regime

Trusts must again report their patient tracking lists which provide detail information on who is waiting for elective care and for how long. The requirement has been reintroduced to enable “oversight of waiting lists and waiting times, particularly for the longest waiting patients,” according to a letter from NHS chief operating officer Amanda Pritchard.

The letter to local leaders said “complementary work” is expected to be undertaken “at a system level, to allow greater sharing of demand and capacity across system footprints”

HSJ revealed last month that NHS England wanted more joint working across integrated care systems and sustainability and transformation partnerships to tackle growing elective waiting lists.

There have been mounting concerns over an expected backlog of RTT demand and an increase in referrals as the NHS resumes routine care.

There are significant questions over which patients shoud be prioritised and the system level thinking is aimed to ensure patients across a health system receive fair access to care.

Ms Pritchard’s letter added that “phase 3” of the NHS recovery plan will be detailed “later in the summer”. This will “ask the NHS to put in place robust plans for the rest of this year – including winter planning, ongoing recovery of NHS services, and ensuring sufficient surge capacity remains in place to deal with any resurgence of covid-19.”

Other reporting requirements to be reinstated include national clinical audits and outcome review programmes, as well as ambulance clinical outcome indicators.

Several mental health data collections will also resume, such as children and young people’s eating disorder waiting times, physical health checks for people with severe mental illness, and out of area placements.