Driving improvement, delivering results: healthcare science national delivery plan 2015–2020

5 Improvement programme for a new integrated model for clinical physiology services

Why this matters

There is significant variation in the infrastructure of clinical physiology specialties and services across NHS boards, often due to differences in the size and structures of departments and availability of appropriately trained staff. Variation impacts on service delivery and, ultimately, the patient pathway. Strengthening integrated local leadership infrastructure to underpin service change and improvement will contribute to developing patient pathways and substantially improve the long-term sustainability of service delivery.

As the new model of healthcare evolves, clinical physiology services are increasingly likely to be provided in primary care settings. Healthcare scientists need to share their expertise with primary and community settings, articulating the benefits of scientific interventions to enhance patient care and demonstrating an ongoing commitment to clinical effectiveness, improvement and quality. There is a real opportunity for clinical physiology to reap the benefits of clinical networking by sharing learning and knowledge via a community of practice to create a model of integrated delivery and quality improvement.

Current situation

Clinical physiology services depend on a small but highly trained workforce. Changing demographics are generating rising demand for cardiac, neurology and respiratory physiology services and audiology. Clinical physiology specialties are still a relatively fragmented group in NHS boards, and there is a need to focus their vision towards potential synergies between groups. Alongside exploration of changes to the configuration of skill-mix in the clinical physiology workforce, there is a need to ensure that a robust and sustainable approach to training is taken to secure future delivery of services.

Our ambitions

We want to:

• strengthen integrated local leadership infrastructure to underpin service change and improvement, leading to long-term sustainability of clinical physiology services
• ensure senior clinical physiologists expand their interpretative role in clinical services as part of multi-disciplinary teams
• support direct referrals from primary care to utilise the group's potential, releasing medical capacity in the system
• explore the development of a clinical physiology network to promote a collaborative approach to improvement
• develop a community of practice to support service sustainability, creating quality improvements across patient pathways.

Deliverable 5

To achieve our ambitions, NHS board healthcare science leads will work with stakeholders to develop a sustainable integrated service model to enhance clinical physiology service delivery and quality by the end of 2020.

Achieving Deliverable 5

NHS boards will:

• support clinical leaders and managers to explore a more integrated approach to service leadership and delivery of clinical physiology services to create more sustainable and coherent quality services for the future
• support healthcare science leads, managers and heads of service to work with the Clinical Physiology Science National Lead.

The National Healthcare Science Clinical Physiology Lead and NHS board healthcare science leads, managers and heads of services will:

• work collaboratively with senior management to develop integrated models of service provision
• establish a network across the clinical physiology workforce
• support a community of practice to drive improvement.