Can you tell us about your involvement in the Elective Care Respiratory Programme, the implementation of the optimal sleep pathway and how you are working with clinics to improve sleep services?
It's been a real pleasure to be involved with the Elective Care Respiratory Programme, particularly because the work in sleep medicine follows on beautifully from the work we undertook together with GIRFT and NHS England some years ago on the development of the Optimal Sleep Pathway.
We want to support clinicians, Trusts and commissioners to drive forward these improvements in sleep pathways to ensure a care pathway for those with sleep disorders which is fit for today and for the future
This document provides a roadmap to improve outpatient pathways in sleep medicine, supporting them to deal with the rapidly rising number of referrals we're seeing nationally. This current work enables further development of the pathway and a toolkit to support organisations with the implementation. This will also enable more rapid access to diagnostics and specialist clinical review, as well as providing care closer to home, enabling and supporting the use of digital technology, and as a result, support patients to gain faster access to treatment for sleep disorders.
What are the long-term goals that you are hoping to achieve as part of the project?
There are plenty of opportunities in outpatient management of sleep conditions to optimise, and to ensure patients with sleep disorders are seen in the right place, by the right person, first time.
Increased personalisation of care and patient empowerment, for example through patient initiated follow up, could improve experiences.
There are also many opportunities to use digital transformation and optimisation of the workforce to enable improvements in patient care and in staff efficiency. We want to support clinicians, Trusts and commissioners to drive forward these improvements in sleep pathways to ensure a care pathway for those with sleep disorders which is fit for today and for the future.
For those in our audience who are wanting to implement changes in their own trusts or clinics, what sleep resources can you direct them to?
I recommend looking at the Optimal Sleep Pathway via the British Sleep Society website. The Association for Respiratory Technology & Physiology (ARTP) also have fantastic resources for sleep and a Sleep Standards of Care. Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) has provided very helpful outpatient guidance. Finally, our work is being published on the Health Innovation Oxford & Thames Valley website.