Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the progress of NHS programmes for reducing variation in (1) the Getting It Right First Time programme, and (2) NHS RightCare; and what additional funding, if any, will be allocated to expand such improvement initiatives as part of NHS England’s long-term plan.

The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme aims to improve the quality of surgical and medical care within the National Health Service by working with frontline clinicians to identify and reduce unwarranted variations in service delivery and clinical practice. Since it was set up in 2016, the programme has been expanded to clinically review 35 surgical and medical specialties.

In terms of tracking progress, the programme measures quality improvement in key outcomes or practices. Since 2016/17, the programme has delivered quality and efficiency improvements, shortening waiting times for surgery, reducing costly cancellations and delays to elective procedures, aiding trusts to meet performance targets, and reducing spend on costly consultancy services.

Since its establishment as a national programme in 2016, NHS RightCare has actively worked with every health system in England to transform services over a wide range of pathways and reduce unwarranted variation. NHS RightCare underpins its activity with robust evaluation to understand the change and impact of local projects through robust planning and modelling. Nationally, this ensures the programme can report on change in reducing variation in terms of finance, activity and health outcomes via the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement Assessment Framework.

The Prime Minister has asked the NHS to develop a long-term plan for the service, setting out how the NHS will develop over the coming years supported by the significant additional funding. This provides an excellent opportunity to look at how reducing variation can be accelerated over the next decade. The plan is currently in development and will be published later in the year.