The problem

NHS managers need to understand patient throughput, types of activity being delivered and how these vary over time. They need reliable, timely and trusted information which is available in a range of formats to suit the relevant audiences and support to navigate and understand the information provided.

Despite healthcare resource group (HRG) activity and financial information becoming largely redundant at the start of the pandemic, there is still a demand to see activity information by speciality, HRG and at patient level to help manage clinical services.

The frequency of reporting has switched from monthly to weekly and the emphasis turned to tracking patient pathways rather than income. Clinical specialities need to understand the type of patient activity that they are seeing in order to plan their resources appropriately.

The challenge

How might we adapt the rich source of information that was previously used for income reporting so that clinicians and managers have easy access to activity information at a patient level to make informed decisions to help manage their service?

The outputs

Monthly and weekly activity reporting with full patient level drill down including a rich and easily accessible pool of information. These are designed in a way to suit individual clinical teams and made available in familiar software such as Excel and Tableau, without compromising performance.

The outcomes

• Strong clinical and management engagement in activity and finance data which could be used to highlight patient pathways, areas of low attendance, weak recording processes and indicate where resources could be re-directed.
• The product is able to be continually adapted to meet the pace of change of the external environment e.g. elective recovery fund requirements.