Surgical pathway demand and capacity planning

We helped our client – a 700 bed acute NHS Trust – to understand demand and capacity along the surgical pathway. We estimated demand by specialty and compared this with measurements of the core capacity that is available by specialty. This was used as a baseline to then investigate how well the core capacity is being used and identify opportunities for improvement, as well as the scope for making greater use of extended hours and weekend working.

This work led the NHS Trust to start internal work looking at how it could make better use of its core capacity, instead of relying on expensive overtime and extended hours.