Last week I was at a meeting at the Royal College of Surgeons of England to help shape the future of commissioning in ENT in the UK. We know that in the past some primary care trusts have labelled ENT operations such as grommet insertion for deaf children and tonsillectomy for patients suffering from severe, recurrent sore throats as 'procedures of limited clinical value'. There seems to be little evidence-based justification for this and certainly for the patients suffering from these conditions the procedures are anything but limited value. The meeting was a cross-speciality group of surgeons, patients, GPs, paediatricians and commissioners sitting around a table and developing an evidence-based outline of what high value care looks like, as well as measures to ensure the safety and quality of high volume surgical services.
The work is in development but should be in draft form by the summer... watch this space. Comments are closed.
|
|