Direct Access Audiology Referral To Treatment (Rtt) Times Data January 2009, England

Main Category: Ear, Nose and Throat
Also Included In: Hearing / Deafness
Article Date: 14 Apr 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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Context

- The "Improving Access to Audiology Services in England", document in March 2007 stated that:

"Improving Access to Audiology Services in England sets out a simple aspiration: for local health systems to transform the experience of the audiology service for all their patients. This requires a radical reduction in waiting…no local health system will be credible in claiming success on 18 weeks if it does not make excellent progress in tackling long waiting times affecting large numbers of its local population, "

- Data to monitor against this aspiration is today being published for the fourth time.

Main Points

- Data is being published on Direct Access Audiology patients whose pathways were completed during January 2009 (completed pathways) and on those patients who were still waiting at the end of January 2009 (incomplete pathways)

- Publication is an important mechanism in order to improve coverage and completeness of the data.

- A data completeness assessment is being published alongside the figures on completed pathways. Details on the data completeness methodology are available on the departmental website.

- Currently national data completeness is 98.7%. However, there are a range of values across the providing organisations. The department continues to work with providing organisations.

- The data completeness assessment compares the number of completed pathways (with a known clock start) reported in the Direct Access Audiology RTT return against the expected number of pathways.

- Where possible, we have used a 5 month moving average of DM01 Audiological Assessment Waiting List Activity to assess the denominator for completeness.

- Where there has either been missing data or an evident discontinuity then this has been addressed in calculating their completeness score

- In total, 33,254 patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, completed their Direct Access Audiology RTT pathway during January 2009.

- The NHS reported both the clock stop and the clock start 33,175 (99.8%) of completed Direct Access Audiology RTT pathways.

- Of those pathways with both a known clock stop and a known clock start, 98.7% of patients completed their referral to treatment pathway within 18 weeks.

Statistical Notes

1. Direct Access Audiology Referral to Treatment (RTT) times

Direct Access Audiology RTT data is collected from English Primary Care Trusts on a responsible population basis (split by provider) and from NHS Trusts on a provider basis (split by commissioner)

The data collection is in two parts:
Part 1 - Completed pathways
Part 2 - Incomplete pathways

The return includes all patients whose 18 week clock stopped at any point in the reporting period. A column has been provided to enter data for patients whose length of Direct Access Audiology RTT period is unknown, i.e. patients who have had a clock stop during the month but where the clock start date is not known.

2. Provider and Commissioner based data

Commissioner based returns reflect responsible based populations, which is defined as:

Responsible Population:

- all those patients resident within the PCT boundary; plus
- all patients registered with GPs who are members of the PCT, but are resident in another PCT; minus
- All patients resident in the PCT, but registered with a GP who is a member of another PCT

Provider based returns cover patients for whom English commissioners are responsible

Additional Information

Full details of Direct Access Audiology RTT data for individual organisations is available here.

Source
Department of health, UK