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P69 Clinical scientist led clinics for severe sleep apnoea patients: a solution to a growing problem

bmjresp · 2025-09-16 · canonical JSON source

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Background Obstructive sleep apnoea is an increasingly common, life altering condition with an efficacious treatment option in the form of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). Unfortunately, after diagnosis there can be issues and delays establishing patients on therapy. Meanwhile there are significant risks for associated comorbidities to cause harm or hospitalisation whilst these patients await treatment.At Leeds Teaching Hospitals, with the historic pathways, patients can wait up to 8 months after having a confirmed diagnosis of sleep apnoea to having a clinic appointment with a medical consultant. This is clearly an unsatisfactory length of time to wait for explanation of the results, with further waiting list time for establishing on treatment after the medical appointment. To improve this, a system has been implemented within our service. Whereby, a triage process identifies higher risk patients and they are established on a one-stop pathway, allowing for an appointment with a Clinical Scientist the day after their sleep study and establishment on CPAP, if appropriate.Aim To assess the efficacy of Clinical Scientist led ‘one stop pathway’ in improving patient experience and time to treatment.Method Data from patients from the historic system and patients from the one-stop system were compared for key waiting list milestones. Including time to sleep study, time to clinic appointment and time to establishing treatment.Results The median time to sleep study was comparable, at 45 days and 46 days respectively. Whereas, the time to clinic appointment was significantly shorter for the patients on the one-stop pathway, reducing the median time waiting from 118.5 days for a clinic appointment to 47. Additionally, the median total time to establishment on treatment was reduced from 236.5 to 47 days. Raw data in XmR chart is presented in figure 1.Abstract P69 Figure 1XmR Chart for time to treatment initiation with CPAP. (A) Historic patient pathway time to treatment, one point of improvement identified by the XmR process. However, non-sustained and rose within the period shown. Breakdown of the total time is presented within table 1; (B) 20 patients presented after the initiation of the one-stop service, a significant reduction in time to treatment is evidentConclusion Increasing availability of appropriately trained staff to deliver expedited CPAP for severe OSA patients has significant reduction in time to treatment, which is not explained by expedited diagnostic tests.