Four people working around a desk

Service Pathway Review

Benchmarking your service against best practice to improve your pathways

We work with commissioners to review healthcare interventions and clinical pathways to understand what works well and where improvements could be made so that services are better for patients.

What we do

  • We review capacity including workforce, equipment and clinic slots in order to identify pinch points where changes would be beneficial
  • We identify and recommend models of service delivery and best practice and map existing provision against this
  • We synthesise evidence from research, data and clinical opinion to inform the re-design process so that pathways can be more efficient
  • We identify what works in other areas and facilitate discussion through engagement events to identify what would work for both the provider and commissioner to improve service quality
  • We make evidence-based recommendations as to how to improve pathways for the benefit of patients

Why choose SPH?

We offer a combination of expertise in both the theory and practical application of change management and service redesign, embedded in a thorough understanding of the NHS. This is strengthened by strong clinical knowledge and experience. Please get in touch via our contact page.

Case Studies

Improving allocative value decision-making in the stroke pathway (STAR tool)

The Mid and South Essex stroke stewardship group wanted to better understand which of the interventions they delivered were high value and which were low value to inform decision-making on use of resources and investment. Arden & GEM’s Healthcare Solutions team provided training and support to enable the group to use the Socio-Technical Allocation of Resources (STAR) process in value based decision-making. As a result, the MSE stroke stewardship group has the insight needed to improve the allocation of their existing resources and improve outcomes for their patients. SPH were part of the project team, conducting a librarian review of economic evidence relating to cost-effectiveness of the stroke interventions to feed into the first workshop. This comprised a review of existing economic cost-effectiveness assessments (ideally by NICE as these are recognised as the guiding authority within the NHS). Where an economic assessment had not been undertaken then this was noted for further consideration. More detail here

Health Needs Assessment for Children & Young People

SPH carried out a Health Needs Assessment for a local authority that was recommissioning its Healthy Child Programme (HCP). The purpose was to review whether existing provision and service configuration of the HCP was meeting the needs of children and young people in the county, and to identify gaps and potential options for improvement. This is a preventative programme which includes Health Visiting and School Nursing Services, Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) Programme and healthy start vouchers and vitamins, linking with childhood immunisation services, community paediatrics, speech and language, services for children with a learning disability and complex needs and child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), among others. The HNA was carried out jointly by SPH and the local authority, with the epidemiological needs assessment and service description provided by the local authority. The report was compiled using a range of publicly available and locally collected epidemiological and service use data. In addition, SPH carried out a consultation of key corporate stakeholders as well as children and young people, their parents and carers. This included semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in a range of organisations, a survey of a wider range of staff who work with children and young people and a survey of children and young people, their parents and cares which was distributed through the services.

Providing evidence to support the reconfiguration of acute hospital services

SPH provided public health support to a programme established to reconfigure acute hospital services. SPH analysed comparative population health outcomes to inform the case for change that was presented to CCGs, and completed a comprehensive review of the literature on the relationship between volume and outcome to identify where there was robust evidence to support the case for service reconfiguration. SPH also provided data and evidence to some of the Clinical Reference Groups that were established to consider future options for specific clinical services, and sourced and analysed detailed travel time information to inform decisions about service delivery options.
More case studies >
Testimonials