NHS England and NHS Improvement

Pathway analyser tool: user guide April 2019

1 | Contents

Contents

Introduction .................................................................................... 2

Data tab ......................................................................................... 3

Setting dependencies .................................................................... 6

Analysis-summary tabs ................................................................ 14

Reviewing the outputs .................................................................. 20

2 | Pathway analyser tool: user guide

Introduction

The Elective Care Intensive Support team (IST) have developed a pathway analyser tool to

identify the main reasons for delays in referral to treatment (RTT) and help operational teams

to focus on interventions that will have the biggest impact on reducing waiting times.

• The tool can be used for any pathway and is not restricted to cancer or RTT.

• This user guide is primarily for those new to the tool.

• The tool requires Excel 2007 as a minimum.

• Our tools are available via the elective care improvement hub.

The tool supports teams to define pathway milestones and helps to identify opportunities for

improvement. It can expose pathway stages that may not be visible to the trust or routinely

monitored. By setting out the milestones in the analyser it is possible to isolate steps that

would benefit from demand and capacity modelling, data collection and performance

monitoring.

The pathway analyser tool can provide a platform for discussing the design of a pathway and

variation in steps between trusts. The analysis improves the understanding of what happens

to patients following the pathway, reducing the dependency on anecdotal evidence.

Recommended approach

We recommend that the operational managers and clinical teams work together to identify

and agree the milestones and corresponding timeframes. Once milestones have been

completed the business information team should extract the milestone data from the patient

administration system/local system for the operational teams to review. Where data is

unavailable it is worth considering how significant the milestone is and if it is worth investing

time and resources to manually extract the information. Solutions for capturing, recording

and reporting milestone data should be identified once the analyser has been completed.

10 | Pathway analyser tool: user guide

First Appointment

(7)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Radiology

diagnostic test (21)

Radiology

diagnostic report

available (28)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Radiology

diagnostic test

(21)

Radiology

diagnostic report

available (28)

Staging

investigation

request (35)

First Appointment

(7)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Radiology

diagnostic test (21)

Radiology

diagnostic report

available (28)

First Appointment

(7)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Radiology

diagnostic test (21)

Radiology

diagnostic report

available (28)

First Appointment

(7)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Radiology

diagnostic test (21)

Radiology

diagnostic report

available (28)

First Appointment

(7)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Radiology

diagnostic test (21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test (21)

~ Cells/milestones hidden

~

13 | Pathway analyser tool: user guide

Users should be careful when resetting dependencies, particularly complex ones, as it can

be difficult or impossible to undo the change once it has been made. It is worth saving

multiple versions before amending the dependency tab.

Returned from

triage (3)

First Appointment

(7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic request

date (7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test (21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic report

available (28)

Pathway Milestone

Clock

Start

Date

First Appointment

(7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic request

date (7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test

(21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic report

available (28)

Radiology

diagnostic request

date (7)

Pathway 1

Returned from

triage (3)

First Appointment

(7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic request

date (7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test (21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic report

available (28)

Pathway 2

Returned from

triage (3)

First Appointment

(7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic request

date (7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test (21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic report

available (28)

Pathway 3

Returned from

triage (3)

First Appointment

(7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic request

date (7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test (21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic report

available (28)

Pathway 4

Returned from

triage (3)

First Appointment

(7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic request

date (7)

Endoscopy

diagnostic test (21)

Endoscopy

diagnostic report

available (28)

Dependency

19 | Pathway analyser tool: user guide

negative values (where the next milestone date is in the past when compared to the previous

one) which require a different dependency.