We have created several resources for the NSW public that answer frequently asked questions about:
Read our Elective surgery resources for patients, carers and families.
The Resource Guide provides practical advice for NSW Health staff on various aspects of the waitlist policy, examples of processes for decision making, escalation and communications around waitlist management in order to assist surgery and waitlist managers to administer the policy.
The Treat in turn principle in practiceto be used in conjunction with the ACI Theatre Efficiency Guidelines to support elective surgery list managers to organise theatre lists in conjunction with key stakeholders.
Elective Surgery Self-Assessment tool and Best Practice Self-Assessment tool: for use by elective surgery managers in conjunction with other key stakeholders to assess District/Network compliance with the Elective Surgery Access Policy.
The CUC list provides the NSW Health recommended CUCs with corresponding Indicator Procedure Codes (IPCs).
This recommended guide of accepted Clinical Urgency Categories was developed with clinicians and managers so that patients with similar conditions are prioritised in a similar way. The appropriate categorisation of patients with similar conditions gives clinicians with greater certainty of their patients getting booked in for their surgery in the clinically recommended timeframe.
Building Resilience for surgical services in NSW provides guidance on key strategies that Local Health Districts and Specialty Health Networks are to implement to improve access to elective surgery. One of those key stratgies is value based surgery. The Agency for Clinical Innovation have published the Value-Based Surgery: Clinical Practice Guide through extensive evidence review and clinical consultation. The procedures in Table 1 have been identified as offering little to no benefit to the patient based on current peer reviewed evidence, except for the specific surgical indications listed in the table.
To meet the requirements of Building Resilience for Surgical Services in NSW [IB2023_004] all Recommendation for Admissions (RFAs) received for surgery listed in Table 1 are required to have supporting evidence aligning with the indicators for surgery. This evidence must be reviewed and agreed by a review panel and endorsed by the Director of Surgery (or equivalent). A summary of this process can be found in appendices.
The Joint Replacement Pathways Framework (the Framework) builds on the Agency for Clinical Innovations' Same-Day Hip and Knee Joint Replacement Surgery Key Principles; by providing details of approaches currently being used by some Local Health Districts which can be adapted to local circumstances by all Districts and Networks. These approaches provide care pathways for patients following discharge from same day or short stay orthopaedic surgery. Each facility should tailor their own pathway depending on best practice guidelines, local protocols and staff preferences.
These pathways and resources have been reviewed by the Surgical Services Taskforce and Agency for Clinical Innovation Networks.
The templates below are for the use of elective surgery waitlist staff to support the implementation of the Elective Surgery Access Policy and include the mandatory policy requirements. They have been developed in consultation with patient groups and elective surgery access manages to support good communication between patients, waitlist staff, treating doctors and General Practitioners (GPs).