The must-read stories and debate in health policy and leadership.

The chief executive of one of the first teaching trusts in the country to have eliminated two-year waiters for elective care cites “boot camps” for managers as key in the success.

Andy Hardy of University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire Trust says “there is no magic to it” and that their formula can be copied elsewhere.

Since the beginning of April, the trust has reported zero patients waiting over two years for their elective treatment – ahead of NHS England’s target of July 2022.

According to the latest data, there are now 42 trusts that have eliminated 104-week waits and UHCW is the largest trust to have done this.

Mr Hardy said that in order to achieve this the trust had been “relentless” in its focus on waiting times and had set up “boot camps” to help managers understand how referral to treatment works.

He told HSJ: “It really does come down to a laser-like focus on waiting times, both at an executive level, down to a group level, and down to speciality level. It can be replicated. There’s no magic to it.”

 

Stand by your beds

In her first speech addressing the annual NHS Confederation conference since she took post, NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard yesterday said the health service has a low bed base and NHSE was reviewing how it got the size of its capacity right.

She said: “The NHS has long had one of the lowest bed bases among comparable health systems. And in many respects this reflects on our efficiency and our drives to deliver better care in the community.

“But it was true before the pandemic, and it remains true now that we have passed the point at which that efficiency actually becomes inefficient.

“So the point has come where we need to review how we right-size our capacity across the NHS. That will of course look at the whole picture of hospital, community and virtual capacity.”

Ms Pritchard also highlighted the current pressures on the emergency care system, which has widely been linked to slow discharges from hospital and insufficient social care provision.

Also on hsj.co.uk today

In London Eye, Ben Clover gives an update on one of the “12 expectations” promised in the integrated care system action programme for the capital, and in news we report that a cluster of integrated care systems across the North of England has bucked the trend to deliver successful integration schemes and better patient outcomes, despite high levels of deprivation.