Tackling variations in clinical care: assessing the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme

The King's Fund -
The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme aims to bring about higher-quality care in hospitals, at lower cost, by reducing unwanted variations in services and practices. It uses national data to identify the variations and outcomes, shares that data with all those concerned with a service – not only clinicians, but also clinical and medical directors, managers and chief executives – and monitors the changes that are implemented. The programme began with orthopaedics and is now being rolled out to 32 different surgical and medical specialisms across the English NHS. Through an informal assessment of the programme, this paper sets out what the programme is, why it is needed, what is different about it, what it has achieved, what challenges it faces and what potential it has. It also contains vignettes illustrating hospitals’ experiences of the programme.

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