Since January 2021, Cinapsis has been working with Xyla Elective Care to help streamline referral pathways. The collaboration is enabling us to bring primary and secondary care teams together within a number of regions, allowing seamless data sharing and helping streamline referrals to speed up patient access to more collaborative, joined-up care.
Who are Xyla Elective Care?
Xyla Elective Care is a trusted NHS elective care delivery partner, providing a wide range of tailored services to NHS organisations across the UK. It is also the largest provider of clinical staffing in the UK and Europe, placing more than 21,000 nurses, doctors and allied health professionals in both the NHS and private hospitals every week.
What is the Integrated Clinical Advice Network (ICAN)?
In partnership with Xyla Elective Care, Cinapsis is broadening access to expert advice and guidance through the Integrated Clinical Advice Network (ICAN). In situations where no local consultant or specialist is available, GPs can use the ICAN to access advice and guidance from a specialist further afield.
This integration supports clinicians to easily request and share advice and guidance when needed, to help reduce unnecessary referrals and support patients to access the right care sooner.
Top benefits of using the ICAN:
- Boosting local pathway knowledge
By incorporating specific guidelines from local doctors and healthcare professionals, the ICAN ensures that our system is aligned with the standards and recommendations used by doctors in your area. We also have a feature that allows us to collect important data about patient cases, which helps us to track and analyse trends to improve healthcare outcomes. Additionally, we offer the option to create training and development modules for GPs to enhance their skills and knowledge. - Enabling safe, timely and effective communication
Through ICAN, primary care clinicians can directly connect with a consultant using instant messaging and image sharing, phone or video call. Working patterns and direct dial details are all managed via the Cinapsis platform to ensure the accurate routing of these calls, and all calls are recorded. A report is then generated which can be automatically uploaded to the patient’s medical record, with details of the advice request made and the resultant guidance given. - Enhancing the clinical safety of advice and guidance
GPs are able to view each available consultant's profile, which is based on verified NHS scope of practice and subspecialist expertise, via the ICAN. Advice is delivered by senior clinicians who are subjected to ICS’ recruitment and compliance checks. These checks ensure that the clinicians meet the required standards and possess the necessary qualifications to provide accurate and reliable guidance.
Additionally, GPs can provide immediate feedback following each consultation and there is a robust information and clinical governance framework in place to ensure patient safety.
In practice: Norfolk and Waveney ICB
In January 2021, healthcare teams in Norfolk and Waveney ICB began using the ICAN. Use of the system with Cinapsis to provide access to timely advice and guidance has helped connect primary and secondary care teams within the region and enabled a significant reduction in wait times for specialist advice from 50 weeks to 48 hours. Engagement sessions, regular communication and peer-to-peer support for GP practices using the system have helped to ensure its effective implementation and long-term success.
Amy Crawford, Transformation Lead, North Norfolk Primary Care said:
“Our partnership with Cinapsis and Xyla is enabling us to innovate in a way which makes it easier for our primary and secondary care teams to collaborate, while speeding up access to treatment for our patients. Use of the system is supporting our clinicians to streamline referrals, tackle elective care wait times and reduce the pressures facing their individual services. It’s fantastic to see the results this is having to date, including a significant drop in wait times for specialist advice. Not only is this helping to optimise referral pathways, but it is helping to unlock more joined-up care while also giving us valuable insights into potential knowledge gaps that we can then help to fill.”
Nicola Ellis-Webb, Healthcare Service Director for Acacium Group, said:
‘As part of Acacium Group, Xyla services benefit from having access to a large network of consultants across all clinical specialties. This means that we have the clinical capabilities to support ICBs with Advice & Guidance services whether the need is for single or multiple specialties. In addition, our unrivalled clinical governance has received high praise from primary care clinicians who use our services. This partnership with Cinapsis provides a comprehensive solution to systems that are focusing on referral optimisation as a priority to transform outpatient services’.
Want to find out more information about our partnership with Xyla Elective Care, and how Cinapsis can support your organisation to boost service collaboration? Connect with a member of our team.