Outpatient department

Last updated

An outpatient department or outpatient clinic is the part of a hospital designed for the treatment of outpatients, people with health problems who visit the hospital for diagnosis or treatment, but do not at this time require a bed or to be admitted for overnight care. Modern outpatient departments offer a wide range of treatment services, diagnostic tests and minor surgical procedures.

Contents

Department

Outpatient department of a hospital provides diagnosis and care for patients that do not need to stay overnight. [1] The departments are also sometimes called outpatient clinics, but are distinct from clinics independent of hospitals, almost all of which are designed mostly or exclusively for outpatient care and may be also be called outpatient clinics.

The outpatient department is an important part of the overall running of the hospital. It is normally integrated with the in-patient services and staffed by consultant physicians and surgeons who also attend inpatients in the wards(OPD). Many patients are examined and given treatment as outpatients before being admitted to the hospital at a later date as inpatients. When discharged, they may attend the outpatient clinic for follow-up treatment. [2]

The outpatient department will usually be on the ground floor of the hospital with car-parking facilities nearby. Wheelchairs and stretchers are available for non-ambulatory patients. Patients will register at a reception desk and there is seating for them while they wait for their appointments. Each doctor will have a consulting room and there may be smaller waiting areas near these. Paediatric clinics are often held in areas separated from the adult clinics. Close at hand will be X-ray facilities, laboratories, the medical record office and a pharmacy. In the main waiting area there are a range of facilities for the patients and their families including toilets, public telephones, coffee shop or snack bar, water dispenser, gift shop, florist and quiet room. [2]

Not all hospitals have separate outpatient departments, so outpatients may be treated in the same departments as patients that stay overnight.

Reform

The Royal College of Physicians said that UK outpatient clinics were stuck "in the 18th Century" and an expensive waste of time and money. There were 127 million appointments in 2017 and about 20% of them were cancelled or the patient did not turn up. 57% of them ran late. They wanted more use of remote monitoring, telephone and video consultations and senior nurses running clinics closer to people's homes. [3] The NHS Long Term Plan proposed that up to a third of face-to-face outpatient appointments should be done by video link by 2024. [4] The COVID-19 pandemic in England spurred radical shifts to video appointments as most routine appointments were cancelled. The Attend Anywhere digital healthcare service was installed across NHS organisations in England in March 2020 with backing from NHSX and by May 2020 had been used for more than 79,000 consultations. [5]

Sir Jim Mackey is leading a drive in 2022 to increase the number of patient-initiated follow-up appointments, where patients "take ownership of their care," arranging follow-up appointments and diagnostics themselves and reducing the number of "pointless reviews". [6] He wants patients to be offered virtual consultations elsewhere in the country if there is a long wait at their local hospital. [7] An NHS England review in August 2022 reported that the number of patients moved or discharged to PIFU pathways across the 34 providers monitored increased from 53,000 to 118,000 in the nine months up to May 2022. This was an increase from 0.7% to 1.5% in the overall proportion of total outpatient appointments across those trusts. [8]

Jacob Haddad, the co-founder of AccuRx, argues that much more should be done to empower patients. He says that "NHS providers should use PIFU to open a digital channel of communication which allows patients to get the specialist support or advice they need, without needing to book an appointment at all if it's not needed." [9]

Payment

NHS England proposed changes to payment systems in 2018 aimed at reducing the number of consultant-led appointments and incentivising hospitals to conduct more appointments remotely. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emergency department</span> Medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine

An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of patients who present without prior appointment; either by their own means or by that of an ambulance. The emergency department is usually found in a hospital or other primary care center.

A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care provider.

Health care in Ireland is delivered through public and private healthcare. The public health care system is governed by the Health Act 2004, which established a new body to be responsible for providing health and personal social services to everyone living in Ireland – the Health Service Executive. The new national health service came into being officially on 1 January 2005; however the new structures are currently in the process of being established as the reform programme continues. In addition to the public-sector, there is also a large private healthcare market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHS Digital</span> Former UK government agency

NHS Digital was the trading name of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which was the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England, particularly those involved with the National Health Service of England. The organisation was an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Marsden Hospital</span> Hospital in London, England

The Royal Marsden Hospital is a specialist National Health Service oncology hospital in London based at two sites in Brompton, in Kensington and Chelsea, and Belmont in Sutton. It is managed by The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and supported by The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust</span> NHS hospital trust

The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust provides adult district general hospital services for Birmingham as well as specialist treatments for the West Midlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen Victoria Hospital</span> Hospital in East Grinstead

The Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH), located in East Grinstead, West Sussex, England is the specialist reconstructive surgery centre for the south east of England, and also provides services at clinics across the region. It has become world-famous for its pioneering burns and plastic surgery. The hospital was named after Queen Victoria. It is managed by the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

A private hospital is a hospital not owned by the government, including for-profits and non-profits. Funding is by patients themselves ("self-pay"), by insurers, or by foreign embassies. Private hospitals are commonly part, albeit in varying degrees, of the majority of healthcare systems around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stobhill Hospital</span> Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland

Stobhill Hospital is located in Springburn in the north of Glasgow, Scotland. It serves the population of North Glasgow and part of East Dunbartonshire. It is managed by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS trust in London, England. It is closely involved with Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, with which it shares its chair, Sir Hugh Taylor, its strategy director and IT director. It is assumed that the two organisations will eventually merge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middlemore Hospital</span> Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand

Middlemore Hospital is a major public hospital in the suburb of Ōtāhuhu, Auckland, New Zealand. The hospital has approximately 800 beds. There are 24 operating theatres across two sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Health Service (England)</span> Publicly-funded healthcare system in England

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health facility</span> Any location at which medicine is practiced regularly

A health facility is, in general, any location where healthcare is provided. Health facilities range from small clinics and doctor's offices to urgent care centers and large hospitals with elaborate emergency rooms and trauma centers. The number and quality of health facilities in a country or region is one common measure of that area's prosperity and quality of life. In many countries, health facilities are regulated to some extent by law; licensing by a regulatory agency is often required before a facility may open for business. Health facilities may be owned and operated by for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, governments, and, in some cases, individuals, with proportions varying by country. See also the recent review paper,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Orthopaedic Hospital</span> Hospital in Birmingham, England

The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital (ROH) is a National Health Service specialist orthopaedic hospital situated in Northfield, Birmingham, England. The ROH specialises in bone and joint problems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust</span> UK public sector healthcare provider

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre is an NHS Foundation Trust, which specialises in the treatment of cancer. The centre is one of several specialist hospitals located within Merseyside; alongside Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool Women's Hospital, and the Walton Centre.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals (WWL) NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS Foundation Trust providing services in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and Wrightington, England. It was formed on 1 April 2001 by the merger of Wrightington Hospital NHS Trust and Wigan and Leigh Health Services NHS Trust, and became an NHS Foundation Trust in December 2008. "Teaching Hospitals" has been included in its name since 1 April 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust</span> NHS hospital trust

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust was an NHS Trust that operated from 1991 until 2023, based in Whiston, Merseyside. The trust became part of Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust on 1 July 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andover War Memorial Hospital</span> Hospital in Hampshire, England

Andover War Memorial Hospital is a community hospital in Andover, Hampshire. The hospital provides inpatient rehabilitation, day hospital services, a minor injury unit and an outpatient unit. It is operated by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, but some services are provided by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. The Countess of Brecknock Hospice is located on the same site as the hospital. The independent regulator of health and social care in England, the Care Quality Commission, rated Andover as "requires improvement" overall in 2018.

The private provision of NHS services has been considered a controversial topic since the early 1990s. Keep Our NHS Public, NHS Support Federation and other groups have campaigned against the threat of privatisation, largely in England.

Attend Anywhere is a web-based video conferencing tool which is used to provide video consultations to patients and service users through virtual clinics known as 'waiting rooms'. It is produced by a not-for-profit organisation within the Australian public health sector based in Melbourne. It is used as part of health-sector or government-coordinated video consulting programmes but is not available for contracts with healthcare providers on an individual basis. In Australia, it is available free-of-charge to Australian public hospitals and to most charities and not-for-profit organisations.

References

  1. ↑ Segen's Medical Dictionary and Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions and Nursing
  2. 1 2 Kunders, G.D. (2004). Hospitals: Facilities Planning and Management. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. pp. 221–222. ISBN   978-0-07-050269-7.
  3. ↑ "NHS outpatients service 'stuck in the 18th Century'". BBC. 9 November 2018. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  4. ↑ "The doctor will call you now: Outpatient video consultations for the NHS". Building Better Healthcare. 23 June 2020. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  5. ↑ "Covid sparks boom in digital hospital outpatient appointments". Health Service Journal. 11 May 2020. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  6. ↑ "Trust chief leads 'industrial' drive to cut 'pointless' follow-up appointments". Health Service Journal. 22 October 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  7. ↑ "Virtual outpatient drive at heart of effort to end 78-week waits, says Mackey". Health Service Journal. 9 August 2022. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
  8. ↑ "Recovery Watch: PIFU progress revealed in leaked report". Health Service Journal. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  9. ↑ "Redefining patient empowerment with PIFU". Digital Health. 11 August 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  10. ↑ "Tariff set to cut payments for traditional outpatient appointments". Health Service Journal. 25 June 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.