Improving waiting times in the orthopaedic outpatient clinic

BACKGROUND: Reducing waiting times for patients is a worthy goal for all healthcare professionals. The means and ability to carry out nerve conduction studies in the hand outpatient clinic has the potential to reduce waiting times between appointments for patients with upper limb neural compression. METHODS: We assessed the pathway of patients presenting with upper limb neural compression in the Aneurin Bevan Trust. Overall, 115 patients were included, being assessed in four different patient pathway groups. RESULTS: We found that by implementing a nerve conduction clinic, and then that of a one stop clinic, we were able to reduce the median waiting times from referral to surgical intervention, to 133 days. CONCLUSION: The introduction of nerve conduction clinics allowed the one stop clinic to be established, achieving the goal of reducing patient waiting times.