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A new service set on easing pressure in Leeds Teaching hospitals One of the positives from 2020 was the opening of a pioneering new consultant-led outpatient surgical facility at St James’s in Leeds in October, the Ambulatory Surgical Centre (ASC). Two years in development, the unit was created to reduce high pressure impact on other key units of LTHT, providing innovative and streamlined new pathways for same day emergency surgical care, GP advice and guidance, and straight to test diagnostics, primarily for general surgery patients.
clinically and academically.” In the first two months since opening, the team took 465 triage calls from various primary care operators, of which 51% were seen in ASC and 17% were either given advice or re-directed based on the triage process. Pathways continue to be developed but of those patients referred from primary care, 73% have been managed on an ambulatory pathway with only 128 patients requiring inpatient treatment. The new service has had a significantly
positive effect on the surgical assessment unit, with reduced numbers attending this care stream each day. Similar work in other centre models has demonstrated a reduction in waiting time to see a senior decision maker from just over four hours to 22 minutes, and similarly for access to acute theatres the project has demonstrated an improvement from an average waiting time of 29 hours to same day surgery and discharge for day cases.
The Acute General Surgical unit at LTHT is the busiest in the UK (NELA Data) and the unit is one of only a few centres in the country, with its own dedicated team of Emergency General Surgeons. The centre has been designed to improve patient experience for those well enough to walk into the unit, with a triage facility providing rapid senior assessment of cases, leading to a higher percentage of sameday discharges and fewer overnight stays. When fully up and running, the ambitious unit will have a dedicated 12-person team of Emergency General Surgeons, efficiently working to deliver ambulatory assessment and surgery preventing patients needing hospital admission. Says Dr Phil Wood, “We fully believe that this service places Leeds at the forefront of acute general surgery both
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