Diagnostic provision at a time of collaboration: a note for members of NHS Trust Boards
Debate continues over whether pathology provision across any particular geography would benefit from a closer collaborative model. However, NHS England and Improvement have, for several years, led parallel pathology improvement workstreams through its Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) and pathology consolidation programmes. The programmes take different approaches and have differing emphases, but both view…
Time for a renewed focus on benchmarking in pathology?
Benchmarking as a managerial technique has been around for several decades. It has become an essential component of the modern manager’s toolkit, used to ‘shine a light’ into areas where further, more detailed, analysis is likely to result in tangible improvement in performance and greater certainty of return on investment. However, for benchmarking to be…
Diagnostic transformation in the NHS
NHS leaders have for several years highlighted significant variation in the provision of NHS diagnostic services. Lord Carter’s reviews into NHS pathology and acute productivity noted considerable variation in the cost and productivity of NHS pathology and diagnostic radiology services. From some perspectives this is perhaps unsurprising as both scientific disciplines have evolved dramatically over…