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<p>There is significant work underway to improve waiting times both throughout London
and nationally.</p><p> </p><p>Locally, at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and wider
South East London Sustainability and Transformation Partnership for example, there
are several plans in place to improve accident and emergency (A&E) and elective
care waiting times.</p><p> </p><p>In relation to A&E, a new clinical facility
at Queen Elizabeth Hospital has increased bed capacity by 44 beds; the SAFER and Red2Green
programme is working to improve discharges processes so that more patients are not
only discharged on time but are also admitted more quickly; and there has been an
increase in the number of clinical staff in the Urgent Care Centre to meet the unexpected
increase in number of patients from the beginning of March.</p><p> </p><p>For elective
care, a theatre productivity programme is in place to increase the number of patients
who undergo an operation at the Trust during 2019/20, and an outpatient transformation
programme is increasing the efficiency of the outpatients’ department, reducing the
waiting times for patients who require an outpatients’ appointment. For cancer, the
Trust is working with the south-east London cancer network to improve cancer pathways
so that waiting times are reduced. The Trust has also secured additional endoscopy
capacity to ensure additional patients can undergo diagnosis tests at weekends.</p><p>
</p><p>Reducing elective care waiting times continues to be a high priority for the
NHS. The NHS Long Term Plan sets out the NHS priorities going forward and reiterates
the focus to increase the amount of planned surgery year-on-year, to cut long waits,
and reduce the size of hospital waiting lists.</p><p> </p><p>The Clinical Standards
Review is all part of delivering the clear commitments set out in the NHS Long Term
Plan to improve urgent and emergency care performance and reduce provider waiting
lists over the next five years, as well as delivering the new ambitions set out, all
within the final long-term funding settlement. The clinically-led review of standards
is considering the appropriateness of operational standards for physical and mental
health relating to planned, unplanned urgent or emergency care, as well as cancer.</p>
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