Dr Jane Collins, Chief Executive, said "Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust is strongly committed to reducing waiting times for families. No unnecessary waits is a key objective for the Trust’s Transformation programme."
The Trust is a tertiary referral centre, which receives approximately 90% of referrals from hospital consultants. This means we are somewhat in the hands of those secondary institutions as to the total time taken from the original GP referral. Our patients are often more complex patients who require more visits or tests to reach diagnosis and treatment.
Most patients referred to GOSH from another hospital are seen within seven weeks and we hope to reduce this to five weeks in most specialities.
The specific target is from the original GP referral, where the Trust has made significant progress. As of end March 85% of admitted and 85% of non admitted patients were seen within 18 weeks of original GP referral, a significant improvement in performance, achieved through the hard work and commitment of our staff.
Our generalist paediatric service at North Middlesex University Hospital has shown a remarkable reduction in outpatient waiting to two weeks, through use of advanced access techniques.
In addition to patient complexity, the Trust suffers from poor data quality from our referrers, a problem shared with other specialist trusts with a large number of referring institutions.
Contact information:
GOSH-ICH Press Office: 020 7239 3125
Email: Coxs@gosh.nhs.uk
For genuine and urgent out of hours call speak to switchboard on 020 7405 9200
