NHSE drive on follow-ups only delivers marginal reduction

NHS England’s drive to encourage patient-initiated appointments is only having a marginal impact on reducing overall outpatient follow-ups, a major study suggests.

NHS England currently has a target to have 5% of outpatients on patient-initiated follow-up pathways, and hopes this can be increased substantially in future years.

The headline finding in a study by the Nuffield Trust think tank, which analysed almost 60 million cases, was that for every 5% on PIFU pathways, this roughly corresponded to 2% fewer outpatient follow-up attendances overall.

It suggests PIFU implementation would need to be dramatically expanded to get anywhere close to a 25% reduction in total follow-up activity, which NHSE had previously targeted by March 2023. As previously reported, there has been little to no reduction so far.

Chris Sherlaw-Johnson, senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust, said: “As few patients are currently on PIFU pathways at present, it’s not going to have that noticeable impact on the overall number of follow ups.”

He also stressed it was not clear whether the reduction was caused by the genuine elimination of unnecessary follow-ups or if patients were not returning for care despite needing it.

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Source: HSJ, 25 January 2024