The South West London (SWL) Acute Provider Collaborative diagnostics programme was established following the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the aim of leading the renewal and recovery of diagnostic services across SWL acute trusts and to ensure the growing demand for diagnostic services could be met.
The programme's objectives were to provide high quality, accessible and equitable diagnostic services for the SWL population, improve performance and productivity, reduce health inequalities, and strengthen partnership working between the providers.
A comprehensive collaborative strategy was implemented across diagnostic modalities (imaging, echocardiography, and endoscopy) to address backlog challenges and included improving productivity and utilisation, waiting list validation and collaborative working.
Action taken
The collaborative secured a dedicated diagnostic programme resource, together with a robust programme and governance structure and formalised clinical leads which drove supported collaborative working across the SWL system. They maximised productivity and utilisation through changing administrative working patterns to enhance booking efficiency, adjusting radiologist job planning to achieve reporting turnaround time targets, and expanding capacity through six to seven day working.
Implementing echocardiography waiting list administrative and clinical validation processes enabled the service leads and booking teams to book patients and manage backlogs more effectively. The providers supported each other through mutual aid initiatives resulting in the delivery of over 1600 echocardiography tests, 1000 MRI scans, 357 colonoscopy procedures and 150 Non-Obstetric Ultrasound Scans (NOUS). The programme, in partnership with the acute trusts, is seeking to acquire better value on a range of external contracts.
Outcomes and impact
As a result of waiting list validation, performance significantly improved with a higher proportion of patients being seen within six weeks of referral. Overall, SWL integrated care board (ICB) performance also improved, with the ICB moving from lowest performance across London to second position.
This collaborative approach has significantly improved diagnostic performance across the system, with six-week performance improving from 20% in June 2020 to 89% in 2025. The roll-out and implementation of their community diagnostic centres programme has been successful in significantly increasing diagnostic capacity across SWL. Since 2021 the collaborative has worked to implement four new community diagnostic centres, in locations closer to more deprived areas of the system.
The collaborative, in partnership with the acute trusts, has also secured better value on a range of external contracts for relocatable scanners and image reporting outsourcing contracts which resulted in a cost saving of approximately £1.5m annually.
The South West London Acute Provider Collaborative, is a partnership between St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust and Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Read the full case study here.