Understanding discrepancies when tracking long-waiters against plan
How many patients are expected to breach the target every week? It's a good question. To answer it, you need to understand how patients are being scheduled.
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More and better analysis of local ’18 weeks’ pressures
We are launching better analyses of your local 18 weeks pressures, to take advantage of new data, improve the analysis of medical specialties, and allow easier comparison with your previous month's waiting list.
Waiting time targets – like happiness – are best pursued indirectly
It sounds sensible to book patients in before they breach the target. But in practice it is unfair, unsafe, and keeps waiting times on the brink of failure. There is a better way.
Modelling follow-up outpatient backlogs
A practical guide to modelling follow-up outpatients (known as "returns" or "repeats" in Scotland) using Gooroo Planner, including waiting times, capacity, and how to model defined courses of treatment.
Protecting urgent patients
Protecting urgent patients is easy if you are willing to waste some capacity. But with a little extra care, you can protect urgents and be efficient at the same time.
18-weeks targets push pressured Trusts into perverse patient scheduling
How the old admitted and non-admitted targets pushed 58 per cent of pressured Trusts into perverse patient scheduling in 2013-14.
Transforming real waiting lists with better scheduling
Starting with a real consultant's waiting list, we show how a rules-based approach to patient scheduling can dramatically reduce waiting times.
The active patient tracking list
In parallel with our HSJ article about active PTLs, this blog post explains how they work.
Wait control: a new system for better waiting list management
Creating a new system for waiting list management will help trusts nail their waiting times targets
The trouble with PTLs
When things get difficult, Trusts often use PTLs to achieve their waiting time targets. But PTLs have unintended consequences.