General surgery: GIRFT Programme National Specialty Report (August 2017)

Summary

Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) is designed to improve the quality of care within the NHS by reducing unwarranted variations. By tackling variations in the way services are delivered across the NHS, and by sharing best practice between trusts, GIRFT identifies changes that will help improve care and patient outcomes, as well as delivering efficiencies such as the reduction of unnecessary procedures and cost savings.

Content

Using data from every acute hospital in England and information from visits to 50 surgery departments, this report suggests that changing general surgery procedures could improve patient care and save the NHS millions of pounds.

The report makes 20 recommendations to improve services, including:

• reducing length of stay
• preventing unnecessary admissions
• improving efficiency by performing surgery at an earlier stage.

Watch a short video summary of the report