Working together for clinical excellence
The Path to Excellence is five-year healthcare transformation programme across South Tyneside and Sunderland which has been set up to secure the future of local NHS services and to identify new and innovative ways of delivering high quality, joined-up, sustainable care that will benefit the population both now and in the future.
The aim of Phase Two of the Path to Excellence programme is to build on the strengths and successes of the hospital Trust whilst helping us to plan and prepare for the tidal wave of pressures we know are facing the NHS.
The NHS organisations involved in the South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Partnership are:
Between us we plan, commission and deliver many of the major healthcare services across the area, including some of the services we talk about on this website.
The Path to Excellence has started work on Phase Two of the programme for four areas of hospital care. The areas of care are:
- Emergency care and acute medicine – This is the care provided when patients arrive at our Emergency Departments, need emergency admission to hospital or have an urgent healthcare need.
- Emergency surgery and planned operations – This is the care provided for patients who are admitted as an emergency and then require urgent surgery, or who have been referred by their GP for a planned operation.
- Planned care and outpatients – This is the care provided in hospital after patients have been referred by their GP for a test, scan, treatment or operation.
- Clinical support services (radiology, therapies and pharmacy) – These are services such as therapy services (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy) as well as clinical pharmacy and radiology services (scans and x-rays).
Over the past year we have been busy engaging with our staff, patients and the public about the challenges facing the NHS and how we can evolve our hospital services to make sure they are fit for the future.