Elective And Emergency Care Improvement Support Team

ECIST is the Emergency Care Intensive Support Team - helping to spread and share good practice #EndPJparalysis #Red2Green #Last1000days #homefirst. You can also follow us on Twitter @ECISTNetwork

n the last couple of weeks we published shares from ECIST on Safer, Faster, Better – good practice in delivering urgent and emergency care and the SAFER patient flow bundle . …. . . and they generated loads of interest, over 1500 people read the shares and we’ve had an inbox full of requests to learn more about the work of ECIST (NHS Emergency Care Intensive Support Team). So the fabulous ECIST team are collaborating with us to bring loads more fab stuff your way.

To start, lets look at an overview of what ECIST is all about:

The Emergency Care Improvement Programme (ECIP) is a clinically led programme that offers practical help and support to the 27 urgent and emergency care systems across England that are under the most pressure. (I just love this approach, departments under the most pressure, not failing departments……. ) It supports rapid and sustained improvements in quality, safety and patient flow. The programme will help improve care for patients, with a particular focus on improving system performance across the winter months, when emergency departments are working under additional pressure. ECIP will focus on helping local systems implement evidence based tried and trusted improvements that are proven to work. The success of ECIP will be measured against better patient outcomes and experience as well as improvements to the emergency care four hour waiting time standard.

How are ECIST going to do this? Well the support programme has four interdependent constituent elements:

1. An enhanced ECIST function. The Emergency Care Intensive Support Team (ECIST) team already works with local health systems around the country to help diagnose problems and identify and implement appropriate solutions. This programme will build on the work of this team by increasing it in size and combining it with experts from other parts of the system such as local authorities, the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the independent and voluntary sectors.

2. Four large-scale learning collaboratives. The programme will set up four clusters that will bring together senior clinical and professional, operational and managerial staff from challenges systems with colleagues from high performing systems and subject matter experts, to share expertise and build peer support relationships.

3. Buddying of systems. This will expand the existing programme of buddying in healthcare – such as for Special Measures trusts – and in local government. Systems will be matched up so that areas can provide each other with bilateral support and advice.

4. Programme management support for leaders in challenged systems. To ensure that improvements are sustained into the longer term, the programme will also offer programme management support that will be embedded in local systems. This support will be intended to help leaders in the most challenged systems to drive and embed improvement and ensure promised actions are implemented.