Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery: GIRFT Programme National Specialty Report (November 2018)

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

This report outlines the need to centralise services and build on existing hub and spoke networks for oral and maxillofacial surgery, especially in the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer and those needing corrective jaw surgery. This will enable central hubs to focus on in-patient work, while outlying spoke hospitals take care of day cases and outpatients, which form a high proportion of oral and maxillofacial work.

The report makes 15 recommendations on the following themes:

1. Improving methods and techniques for data collection to ensure better analysis
2. Examining why more simple surgery, such as wisdom tooth removal, isn’t being done outside of hospital, helping to free up resources
3. Developing local networks across the country, giving patients access to the most appropriate care for their needs
4. Optimising the secondary care pathway by reducing the number of follow-up appointments required

GIRFT and the British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) have issued an advice pack on the organisation of oral and maxillofacial services into networks to support the implementation of recommendations in the report.

Watch a short video summary of the report