Use of novel modelling techniques and routinely collected data to explore responses to winter pressures Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (Yorkshire and Humber Improvement Academy)

Computerised modelling techniques offer the opportunity to obtain robust estimates of how effective change in the NHS might be. However, modelling is an under-used tool operationally in the NHS, primarily due to a lack of familiarity, but also due to the complex nature of the health care system, lack of detailed data, and difficulties in trying to distil patient experience into manageable groups.

This proof of concept project demonstrated the application of a modelling technique to explore strategies to cope with winter workload pressures in hospitals. It showed that using readily available information in a computerised model can provide a structured approach to support decision making.

The project team had already successfully modelled patient flow and resource use in the hospital’s intensive care unit. This project expanded this approach to the whole hospital, which has 900 inpatient beds.

The model was successfully implemented hospital-wide and is now used for winter planning at the hospital. The model successfully predicted a spike in demand at the hospital at the end of March 2019, and continues to successfully predict winter pressures.

A teaching package has been developed to allow others to use this modelling, and workshops have been held. The model is written almost entirely in R, so it can be used elsewhere in the NHS at no cost, and it has been released as open source, along with a more a set of models that can be used as an introduction to the technique and teaching package.

Elements of the model were used to plan for intensive care unit capacity, both in the UK and abroad, and for elective surgery ‘restart’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, it is being used as part of work by the new Improvement Academy Data Analytics Unit for long-term capacity planning within the West Yorkshire Critical Care Network region.

Contact information

For more information about this project, please contact Tom Lawton, Critical Care Consultant, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.