Trauma & Orthopaedic Case Study in the South-West
The Details
Emergency care disrupting elective care
Like many others, the Trust had to pause all orthopaedic work during the Covid pandemic and run only the critical trauma service.
Long waits
A large backlog of routine orthopaedic work had built up at the trust, reaching 3,140 patients waiting for surgery. 552 of these patients had been waiting over a year.
Hybrid Teams
18WS created a partnership with the Trust to create hybrid teams, where 18WS brought in teams of highly experienced theatre clinicians and onboarded the Trust’s own consultants and anesthetists. A significant proportion of the patients to be treated were overnight cases, so a blended team was the approach taken as continuity of care was of great importance
Constant Oversight
Once the service was running performance is monitored daily by the nurse-in-charge and weekly operational review meetings. The nurse-in-charge is accountable for the smooth running of the service and acts as the important link between the trust and 18WS.
Clinical Excellence & Efficiency
On each list we maximised both clinical excellence and the number of patients who could be safely treated. 18WS ran a 2-day weekend service, and we were able to flex and increase our capacity over the summer months as required, as increased demand for trauma services put further pressure on the Trust’s own staff
Our Results
We achieved a 67% reduction of patients waiting over 1 year for surgery in the year and a half we partnered with the Trust.
The patients we treated were incredibly happy with our service; 99.9% of our patients rate the quality of our service very good and 99.9% are likely to recommend our service.
-67%
patients waiting over 1 year for surgery
85%
Average utilisation rate
99.9%
Patient satisfaction score
