Fleetwood Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC) near Blackpool is the first of a series of implementations of the Lenus Health Diagnose product within community diagnostic centres.
Fleetwood CDC is part of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Lancashire and South Cumbria Diagnostics Collaborative. Lenus has directly contracted with the Trust utilising funds locally disbursed for this purpose under NHS England’s Community Diagnostic Centre Programme to adopt the Lenus Diagnose product, which is designed to automate clinical workflows and reduce time to diagnosis across a range of cardio-respiratory conditions.
The scale-up pilot will aim to drive service efficiencies and reduce time to treatment for patients awaiting ECHO tests.
The new pathway implementation aligns with the updated GP Direct Access policy for heart failure, and the recovery of elective services following the pandemic.
Jack Smith is Director of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Diagnostics Collaborative, which oversees the implementation of CDCs across the area. “This is an exciting opportunity to trial the latest technology in clinical practice to benefit our local patients in a community setting,” he said. “It has the potential to significantly reduce clinical time and speed up heart failure diagnostic waiting times, so people can start getting the help they need more quickly.”
Building on independent evidence which already shows that the technology can reduce time to diagnosis by 78% and time to treatment by 75%, it is hoped that the Lenus Diagnose service will improve waiting times for echocardiograms, time to diagnosis, and other metrics – as well as improving experience and outcomes for patients at risk of heart failure.
The project will help build the business case for use of workflow automation software to help
streamline diagnostics pathways and establish digital foundations for home-based testing for certain conditions.
Dr Alison Seed, Consultant Cardiologist at Blackpool Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, said: “It is really exciting to be one of a small number of centres in the UK to adopt this digital platform approach to our diagnostic clinic. The Heart Failure team are proud again to be early adopters of new technology and particularly to find that our long-established pathways match the vision for all HF teams across the UK so closely.”
Dr Seed said the platform will increase the team’s efficiency and free up more time for patients. “We look forward to sharing our experience with other centres and other specialties locally, along the way,” she added.
The digital tool may ultimately be used in other settings to coordinate resources and tests in the pathway, with further potential to consider wider scaling across the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), helping to inform its integrated diagnostic strategy, and in other conditions.
In addition to these community care settings, the technology will also be rolled out in secondary care settings by the NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB, supported with funding from NHS England Cardiac Network.
Paul McGinness, Chief Executive Officer of Lenus Health, said: “We are delighted to be rolling out our Diagnostic Pathway Product to address waiting times for heart failure diagnosis in England. This programme will support the generation of more evidence of the effectiveness of our plug-in digital product to automate clinical workflows, reduce unnecessary tests and outpatient visits and help bring down waiting lists for cardio-respiratory tests.”
