The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has transformed its sonography department through a series of initiatives to reduce waiting times, in what NHS England described as best practice.
Patients needing ultrasound scans no longer have to wait more than six weeks for an appointment, following what a spokesperson described as an “incredible turnaround”.
Among the 13 West Midlands NHS Trusts, the Royal Wolverhampton Trust (RWT) has gone from second from the bottom in the league table (April 2023) to the top, according to the latest benchmarking data from NHS England (April 2024).
'Hugely flexible'
NHS England (NHSE) has since recognised some of the initiatives the department implemented, and put them forward as best practice to follow nationally.
These include:
- Partial booking, which involves writing to the patient and offering the opportunity to phone in and make a mutually convenient appointment, rather than sending out a fixed date and time
- Flexible working
- Weekly meetings to review performance
- Improved its recruitment and retention to go from significant vacancies to almost none
Glen Whitehouse, group manager of diagnostic services at the RWT, said that the impact of partial booking had been particularly significant
He explained: “This has been a large contributor to the success of the department but has been a massive undertaking for the booking team, which has had to completely change its way of working. Often this method of booking can be very intense as we can’t predict when patients will phone, making the workload far less consistent than the traditional method of booking.
“However, our booking team has risen to the challenge and has been hugely flexible around our strategic booking methods and shifting requests of staff. We have gone from the most challenged department in the West Midlands to one of the best – and we are already being asked for help by other departments.”
Invaluable contributions of sonographers
Among the other changes the department has made are:
- Recruiting nearly 20 “exceptional” Sonographers in the last 15 months
- Expanding the training programme and guaranteeing suitably planned training lists
- Implementing Radiology Events and Learning Meetings (REALM) meetings
- Regular staff meetings
- Created protected vetting time
- Adding flow coordinators to the team
- Improving the leadership structure
- Putting on special events, such as the Physiotherapy Lead, MSK welfare session and lunch-and-learn sessions from manufacturers
Last year, just 35 per cent of patients were offered an appointment within six weeks – earlier this year, the RWT was able to offer every patient in need of an ultrasound scan an appointment within six weeks.
Lucy Willcox, head of operations for radiology, said the turnaround had been down to the “invaluable” contributions of Karen Hill, superintendent for ultrasound, and Tash Smith, deputy ultrasound superintendent, the bookings team, the senior management team, sonographers and their assistants.
'It's about growing the workforce'
Mr Whitehouse added: “A year ago we had thousands of patients waiting for an ultrasound, and many over 13 weeks. As of April, no patients are waiting longer than six weeks and that will make a huge difference to patient outcomes and experience. This has been achieved by the incredible ultrasound team, which has implemented new processes.
“It’s about growing the workforce to meet the demands on the service. Two or three years ago we had around 16 sonographers, we now have 34, as well as two additional trainees. We have also increased our imaging assistant workforce proportionately as the sonographers and imaging assistants work together as a team.
“We have an excellent collaborative working relationship with our neighbouring trusts and we are now looking to see if we can support them to also improve their performance.”
(Image: RWT Ultrasound Team, via the RWT)