‘Tearing up’ the outpatient model was the key takeaway for many from NHS England Chief Executive Sir James Mackey’s recent speech at the NHS Confed Expo 2025 conference, that deploying technology can achieve many times greater productivity benefits and transform care delivery for patients. Through our work with Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, we have demonstrated that the outpatient model can be redesigned asynchronously to deliver rapid improvements in productivity and significantly reduce patient wait times.
Transforming outpatient care
Redesigning and improving outpatient care is not a new area of focus for the NHS but it is one that still needs a new way of thinking and considerable drive for it to become a reality. The NHS Long Term Plan in 2019 talked about new technology being crucial to the future of the NHS, with the NHS Outpatient Recovery and Transformation Programme in place to deliver more personalised care more quickly. The Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) programme provided guidance on actions to take to help tackle growing outpatient demand.
The continuing burden on outpatient services and long wait lists demonstrate that a more radical approach is needed to reach greater levels of productivity beyond small, incremental changes.
The three strategic shifts in care delivery
Transforming outpatient care focuses not just on delivering more patient-centered care but also more efficient and accessible services. This is supported by the three strategic ‘shifts’ outlined by the government back in Autumn 2024 and revisited in the reforming elective care plan in January 2025– from analogue to digital, hospital to community and treatment to prevention.
Some key areas involved in the transformation of outpatient services align more closely with the first two of these strategic shifts including:
- Digital solutions: Using digital technology to improve access, communication, and remote monitoring. This can involve online patient-facing portals for appointment booking and virtual consultations but also includes technology that improves data sharing and communication between clinicians.
- Operational efficiency: Streamlining referral processes and reducing unnecessary, missed or cancelled appointments.
- Multidisciplinary care: Moving towards team-based care with a broader range of healthcare professionals involved and improving access to shared data and communication.
- Data-driven decision making: Using data and analytics to identify not just areas for improvement but also to support clinical decision making, for example by bringing diagnostic data earlier into the process.
The benefits of delivering a new model of outpatient care and ensuring a health service that’s fit for the future are many:
- Improved patient outcomes: More timely access to care, reduced wait times, and better management of chronic conditions.
- Increased patient satisfaction: Greater control over care, improved communication, and a more patient-centered experience.
- Reduced costs: More efficient use of resources, fewer unnecessary appointments, and reduced hospital admissions.
- Enhanced staff satisfaction: Improved workflows, reduced administrative burden, and a more fulfilling work environment.
- Better utilisation of resources: Optimising the use of hospital facilities and staff time.
A diagnostics-first outpatient model
As we outlined in our recent webinar with the Health Service Journal, transforming outpatient care can be successfully delivered with a ‘diagnostics-first’ outpatient model.
By introducing a diagnostics-first pathway approach and facilitating a live view of the GP record to secondary care clinicians within Bleepa®, we can remove the need for initial outpatient appointments, deliver the pathway more productively with asynchronous multi-disciplinary team review and reduce wait times and wait lists for better patient care.
“The vision from the beginning was to redesign the model of care so that once referred, patients went straight to diagnostics, thereby reducing the need for a first outpatient appointment and reducing the risks of bouncing patients back to GPs for further referrals to different specialties.
“With Bleepa® as the technology enabler, this has optimised and automated multiple steps on the pathway with greater visibility of where the patient is on their care journey to multiple people across the clinical teams.”
Deputy Chief Medical Officer / Clinical Lead for Pathways and Physiological Studies, Queen Victoria Hospital Community Diagnostic Centre
The award-winning breathlessness pathway delivered with Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has shown the impact a redesigned outpatient approach can have on referral to treatment times (63% reduction compared to the national 18-week target) and reduced outpatient appointments.
“With this new pathway, we completely cut out the oscillation that patients experience going from specialist to specialist trying to find answers to their symptoms, and we turn a traditional 20 to 30 minutes outpatient appointment into a six to 10 minutes online, remote review.
From the patient’s perspective; a patient goes to see a GP, they go to a community Diagnostic Centre, and then in 90% of cases from the pathways we’ve experienced, the patient is then sent back to primary care with a fully managed care plan, and only those who really need to go to the hospital are then brought in and referred for an outpatient appointment.
“So better for the environment, better for the patient, and more efficient for the NHS.”
Head of Sales, Feedback Medical
Redesigning the model of care
Multidisciplinary care is a core element of the drive for more neighbourhood working across health and care services – supported by the shift from hospital to community – which aligns with relieving the burden on outpatient services and elective care.
“This is where this approach with Feedback and the Bleepa® platform where we can access diagnostics with our clinical colleagues in radiology, in cardiology, in respiratory medicine and, now, non-specific symptom pathways are really critical. You can have those conversations and really understand where that person’s direction of investigation is going.
“If we think about it from an integrated neighbourhood care perspective, the ability for us to communicate in asynchronous ways through dependable platforms is going to be critical.
“I think this is not just a fantastic way of redesigning elective care and improving the efficiency of elective care, it’s also a fantastic way of connecting disparate teams into a much more integrated way of working around a population.”
GP Partner, Moatfield Surgery
As demonstrated in the recent simulation with PPL and London health and care partners, digital platforms to facilitate cross-team working will be a critical element of delivering neighbourhood health services to transform care delivery and improve patient outcomes.
A present-day necessity
Transforming outpatient care is no longer a futuristic ambition but a present-day necessity. As demonstrated by innovations like the diagnostics-first pathway delivered by platforms such as Bleepa®, we now have the tools to deliver faster, more efficient, and more integrated care.
By embracing digital solutions, multidisciplinary collaboration, and asynchronous workflows, healthcare systems can significantly reduce wait times, improve patient outcomes, and create a more sustainable model for outpatient services. The challenge now lies in accelerating adoption and scaling these proven approaches across the NHS and beyond.