SBRI Healthcare NHS England competition for development contracts
The acute sector represents around half of NHS England spend and will therefore be a key contributor to these efficiency gains. Within this context, there is a major opportunity to improve operational efficiency in acute care by better management of patient flow through and out of acute care. This cuts across many aspects of the patient journey, but focuses on activities that can enable more efficient progress through diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitation services towards hospital discharge.
Identified via consultation with clinicians and other stakeholders working in acute care, under the primary theme of ‘Improving patient flow’, applications were invited in three key categories:
- Category 1: Improving in-patient journey whilst receiving care within the hospital
- Category 2: Improving use of resources during the patient journey within acute care
- Category 3: Improving efficiency of hospital discharge
Increasingly we need to understand how to improve flow into, within and out of hospitals by focusing on how to prevent admission, by increasing the proportion of day cases, reducing the length of stay for those people that need to be admitted and by thinking about how to improve discharge and reablement processes. It is important to consider the whole patient journey and to avoid any changes to patient flow that compromise safety or system reliability.
Whilst the NHS has undoubtedly improved performance in this area, there is still significant need to identify innovative solutions to improve patient safety and experience and whilst driving down costs, increasing efficiency and productivity.