Seven day services: how are trusts doing against Keogh’s clinical standards?

As part of the implementation of seven day services, hospital trusts are expected to meet 10 clinical standards. The standards were drawn up by the national medical director, Bruce Keogh, and his colleagues at NHS England in 2013, informed by an Academy of Medical Royal Colleges report published in 2012.1 2

Trusts are expected to meet four priority standards by the end of this financial year. The standards are:

• Time to first consultant review—patients should be seen as soon as possible but within at least 14 hours

• Inpatients should have seven day access to a range of diagnostics

• Inpatients should have access to a range of key interventions

• All acute patients must be seen and reviewed by a consultant, twice daily.

In a brief snapshot of how trusts were performing around the country, The BMJ found that many were already meeting these standards.

For example, James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Norfolk was one of NHS England’s 13 “early adopter” pilot sites for seven day working, and it …