Supply and demand review.

Problem:

A circa 20k practice was an outlier for its patients use of the local UCC despite taking action such as extending opening times, using an MDT and introducing e-consultations.

Our work:

We were asked to understand the root causes of the patients use of the UCC. We worked with the local Business Intelligence Unit to design multi-dimensional searches (e.g. time of  attendance, age, post-code, disposition, prescribing at UCC) to identify patterns of demand and triangulated this with practice level insights (observation, focus groups, review of operations, assessment of clinical need of visits.) Patient engagement was not in scope.

Outcomes:

We identified the main drivers that that accounted for a considerable proportion of attendances from which we derived a SMART action plan. We were able to identify high users and their needs, sub-postcode areas where resources should be prioritised and high-impact changes in the practice operations amongst the actions