Health services

Tender description

The National strategy of providing care closer to home has led the commissioners to transfer services where appropriate out of secondary to primary care settings. In the case of minor surgery, the service is commissioned in such a way as to achieve three key goals: — Ensuring equality of access so that Leeds patients who are registered with general practices who do not participate in the minor surgery DES, still have access to those services through referral to a community minor surgery provider of their choice, — Ensuring that lower complexity minor surgery cases can be managed through referral to a community minor surgery provider of their choice, rather than to a hospital service, — Enable other community services to access treatments that would otherwise be delivered by a hospital provider. Commissioners expect services to be delivered in line with the latest evidence base and providers will be required to ensure services meet all national regulatory requirements. Contract 3+1+1 The National strategy of providing care closer to home has led the commissioners to transfer services where appropriate out of secondary to primary care settings. In the case of minor surgery, the service is commissioned in such a way as to achieve 3 key goals: — Ensuring equality of access so that Leeds patients who are registered with general practices who do not participate in the minor surgery DES, still have access to those services through referral to a community minor surgery provider of their choice, — Ensuring that lower complexity minor surgery cases can be managed through referral to a community minor surgery provider of their choice, rather than to a hospital service, — Enable other community services to access treatments that would otherwise be delivered by a hospital provider. Commissioners expect services to be delivered in line with the latest evidence base and providers will be required to ensure services meet all national regulatory requirements. Local defined outcomes a) Within 2 weeks of the referral being received, patients will have been contacted with the offer of an appointment b) The appointment for patient’s treatment to take place must be within 6 weeks of the date of referral. (The patient may however choose to delay this appointment beyond the 6 weeks if they so choose) Aims and objectives of service The services will: — Ensure equitable, timely, high quality and appropriate access, — Ensure patients are seen and treated in a safe environment, appropriate to their care needs, — Provide a streamlined patient referral process. Service description/care pathway Providers should ensure that all their services are published on Choose and Book and that the directories of service fully reflect the service criteria within this specification. Referral — Referrals which do not meet the inclusion criteria set out within this service specification will be returned to the referring GP with appropriate explanation. — Referrals with incomplete information will be returned to the referring GP with appropriate explanation. — Referrals made for cryotherapy to remove of warts/verrucas, skin tags or seborrheic keratosis must be made using the sanctioned referral form. (Cryotherapy guidance listed below refers). Clinical assessment and triage — The provider will conduct clinical assessment and triage, before offering the patient an appointment. Patient Attendance — The provider shall conduct diagnosis, treatment and aftercare where appropriate, incorporating a risk assessment on patients before any procedure being performed, — The provider shall ensure that the patient is properly informed, prior to the completion of consent forms, — The provider should supply information to patients, in a range of formats and languages appropriate to them. The information should include the outline of services, together with patient information leaflets giving details of their conditions and any treatment advice. Post Procedure — The provider shall discharge the patient to the appropriate level of care: —— Where this is back to the referrer the provider shall ensure that all patients have a formal documented care plan/discharge notes which are shared with the referrer. This must include the process regarding the sharing of histology results (patients need not be re-contacted with the results unless the histology finding is unexpected and requires further clinical follow up) —— Where clinically appropriate referral to another provider is required, appropriate choice must be offered where relevant. This service is for patients registered with a Leeds GP practice.