What is The Diagnostic Programme?

Diagnostics capacity is a priority for most systems and provider collaboratives across the country are taking the lead to increase capacity by realising the unique opportunities offered by working at scale.

The Diagnostics Programme is a key element of the Humber and North Yorkshire Collaboration of Acute Providers (CAP) aiming to improve care for patients reduce health inequalities and unwarranted variation.

The programme aims to reduce the time taken to diagnose illness and ensure the patient journey between services is efficient.

The success of national efforts to tackle long waiting lists and to recover elective performance (elective recovery page) depends on increasing diagnostic capacity, which has not grown in step with the increasing demand over the past decade. Diagnostics are an essential part of over 85% of all clinical pathways and play a key role to detect disease earlier and accurately guide patients onto the right pathways and treatments.

To support the step change needed in the delivery of these services, the Diagnostics programme supports providers in Humber and North Yorkshire to collaborate to build additional capacity. 

The scope and delivery of the programme includes:

• recovery and maintenance of waiting times for diagnostic testing to meet the diagnostic standards set out for the NHS.
• equity of testing access across the system and standardisation of pathways to reduce variation and health inequalities.
• building a resilient, system-wide service for the future that provides value for money through continuous improvement in service delivery, capability and technological implementation.
• working collaboratively with other programmes (e.g. Cancer alliance) to develop plans for Radiology, Pathology and Audiology services.