Consultant Connect 2020 – At a Glance

Published: 16th December 2020

As we are getting close to the end of 2020, we have reflected on some of our highlights over the past year. These include expanding the service to cover over 29 million patients across the UK, supporting the NHS in their response to COVID-19, and the launch of the Referral Backlog Triage service. Read this article to find out more.

The new year is just a few days away, so we have pulled together some of Consultant Connect’s highlights from 2020.

What our benchmarking data can tell you

We published our five-year “anniversary” report with all the data since day one. As well as the fact that we are now covering over 29 million patients across the UK, our top highlights include:

66% of telephone advice calls to elective specialties result in the patient avoiding a trip to hospital
75% of telephone advice calls to Haematology result in the patient avoiding a trip to hospital
59% of telephone advice calls to Acute Medicine do not result in the patient needing an immediate admission
72% of photo messages sessions to Dermatology result in the patient avoiding a trip to hospital
28% of photos attached to e-RS 2WW referral result in the patient avoiding a trip to hospital

Find out more and access the full report.

Our COVID responses

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic we have supported the NHS modernise faster than ever before. Our solutions have been adopted and applied to the continued challenges we face. Some of our approaches have been rolled out in as little as 72 hours, meaning they can still make an impact this winter.

Some of the ways we have supported the NHS in their response to COVID:

Enhanced A&G in Elective Care and Urgent Care
National Consultant Network for advice when there’s no local option
National Consultant Network for Referral Backlog Triage
Photo Messaging across multiple specialties
Safe Early Discharge
Mental Health
Community Users (incl. Care Homes)
Remote Working/Quarantined Clinicians

Find out more about our COVID responses in practice.

We launched the Referral Backlog Triage

Referral Backlog Triage was launched to help with the prioritisation of NHS waiting lists for Trusts with backlogs, that have built due to COVID-19. The service is available for 17 specialities and uses our National Consultant Network (NCN). It’s the same network we launched 2 years ago which currently supports more than 50 NHS trusts with their capacity to deliver Advice & Guidance. Find out how it works.

We partnered with 18 Week Support to offer NHS trusts an end-to-end solution.

Consultant Connect and 18 Week Support now offer an end-to-end solution which includes referral triage, outpatients, pre-assessment, diagnostics, and day surgery. The end-to-end solution is a modular approach that can be implemented at pace or Consultant Connect’s Referral Backlog Triage or 18 Week Support’s services can be booked separately.

HSJ Award Finalist!

Earlier this month we were shortlisted as a finalist for ‘Best Acute Sector Partnership with the NHS’ in the HSJ Partnership Awards 2021. We are delighted to be recognised for our shared efforts of ‘Establishing a COVID-19 Assessment and Admissions Unit’ at such a critical time, with our partners Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, NHS Tayside.

Our First Consultant Connect Awards

To mark our five-year anniversary and the responses to the incredible challenges faced by the NHS this year, we launched the Consultant Connect 2020 Awards. We felt it was important to recognise our NHS customers’ successes, despite the huge challenges the year bought.

Find out more about our ‘NHS Advice & Guidance: Best Overall Projects 2020’ winners and their stories.
Read about Consultant Connect 2020 Awards: Part Two, and our winners for ‘Best Responses to COVID-19’.

We were in the press!

This year we were featured in the press more than ever. Below are just some of the articles we were featured in.

Digital health – Consultant Connect data reveals usage has soared during COVID-19
The Oxford Times – Interest in Consultant Connect has rocketed!
Wrexham.com – Welsh Ambulance Service to “embrace technology for frontline staff under new digital strategy
BBC News – New app to provide specialist advice to GPs in seconds
North Wales Chronicle – GPs make best use of new app to avoid unnecessary hospital trips for patients in North Wales

You can access all the articles we were featured in, on our ‘In The Press’ page.

We hosted 15 webinars!

We brought the health experts to you, in our series of free online webinars. Our speakers shared their expertise and practical advice on:

We welcomed thousands of you to our webinars this year and it wasn’t a surprise considering the speakers we had lined up, they included:

Professor Frank Joseph (Consultant and Future Hospital Officer at the RCP, London)
Dr Ron Cook (Consultant Emergency Physician, Ninewells Hospital, Tayside)
Anthony Fitzgerald (Chief of Strategy and Delivery, NHS Doncaster CCG)
Pat Phillips (Senior Commissioning Manager – Planned Care, NHS Birmingham and Solihull CCG)
Dr Sotiris Posporelis (Facilitator & Consultant Liaison Neuropsychiatrist)
Stephen Wells (Senior Programme Manager, North Central London CCG)
Keith Spratt (Head of Contracts, North Central London CCG)
Dr Brendan Lloyd (Medical Director, WAST)
Paula Jeffery (Regional Clinical Lead, WAST)
Dr John Black (Medical Director, SCAS)
Professor Andrew Goddard (President, Royal College of Physicians)
Dr Katherine Henderson (President, Royal College of Emergency Medicine)
Dr Susan Crossland (President, Society for Acute Medicine)