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P70 Evaluating the viability of triaging pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and consolidating current appointment types at Sunderland royal hospital

bmjresp · 2025-09-16 · canonical JSON source

2 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Introduction Recent guidance recommends triaging requests for pulmonary function tests (PFTs) prior to booking (GIRFT 2024), but this had not yet been feasible in our service due to clinical pressures. This audit was performed to evaluate the viability of triaging for our service as well as consolidating PFT appointment types. The aims were:Were patients clinically indicated for all the tests they had been requested to do?Were 34 PFT appointment types necessary when all combinations were taken into consideration?Methods PFT requests on the waitlist between November 2023 and February 2024 were ‘triaged’ by a specialist respiratory physiologist (band 6 or above) to ensure the requested tests aligned with clinical guidelines e.g. NICE, and patient history. Any discordance was queried directly with the referrer. Appointment type utilisation was calculated for the previous 12-month period, and the previous 4 years.Results 43 referrals were queried due to deviation from clinical guidelines, and 22 responses were received (51.16% response rate). 19 of those (86.36%) led to a change in the combination of PFTs asked for. Overall, this saved 11.33 hours of testing time from the original requests. ( Figure 1)9 appointment types were not utilised in the previous 12-months, with a further 9 utilised <10 times. Within those 18 types, half of them were performed <10 times in the previous 4 years also.Conclusions There is value in triaging referrals, as due to the testing time saved, this indirectly reduced the time patients waited for testing. Variation in referral patterns for similar conditions e.g. asthma, demonstrated the need for a standard operating procedure to aid referrers in selecting the appropriate PFT combination. Assessing the usage of appointment types showed there is reason to reduce the options available due to under-use; and may have contributed to the variation in referrals seen. Lastly, protected administrative time was created to facilitate regular triaging.Abstract P70 Figure 1Original PFT appointment list (34) on the left, with the new PFT appointment list (17) on the right after performing/this audit showing the need to reduce the options availableReference Further Faster Respiratory and sleep medicine Handbook. Available at: FF Handbook – Respiratory Master December 2024 – Getting It Right First Time – FutureNHS Collaboration Platform [Accessed 3 Jan. 2025, page 13].