Following an increase in the number of complex patients accessing the Trust’s podiatry service, a pilot study was carried out to understand what could be improved to see these patients quicker.
The pilot project looked at a selection of the service’s existing patients and reassessed them against an evidence based criteria to ensure appropriate patients were referred into the service. This now means the service has more capacity to see patients with high medical needs and those with lower needs are given information about self-care or are referred to a non NHS provider if suitable.
Zoe Larmour, ICC manager for Cockermouth and Maryport, who contributed to the project said:
“The podiatry service has historically undertaken a number of services, such as nail clipping, which could be delivered outside the NHS and this has resulted in delays for patients needing to access the service due to the teams having limited capacity.
“As a result we have been exploring options for changing the service to ensure that patients with high medical and/or podiatric needs can be seen appropriately and also that the needs of people with lower level needs are still met.
“Following our successful pilot study, where we reassessed a number of patients already in the service against the evidence based criteria, we managed to discharge over 1000 patients and this has really helped with capacity and seeing those higher risk patients more quickly.”
The podiatry team will be rolling out the evidence based criteria referral system across north Cumbria in February 2020.