Quality and impact of appraisal for revalidation: the perceptions of London's responsible officers and their appraisers.

Background: To evaluate NHS England London region's approach to the revalidation appraisal of responsible officers in London, exploring perceptions of the quality and impact of the appraisal process. Revalidation is the process which aims to ensure doctors in the UK are up-to-date and fit to practice medicine thus improving the quality of patient care. Revalidation recommendations are largely premised on the documentation included in annual appraisals, which includes the professional development a doctor has undertaken and supporting information about their practice.

Towards saving a million bed days: reducing length of stay through an acute oncology model of care for inpatients diagnosed as having cancer.

Problem: The need to develop a patient pathway for emergency admissions who have a previously undiagnosed cancer.

Design: The existing patient pathway was audited and process-mapped to identify delays and areas for improvement. Discussions with key stakeholders were held to identify their needs from an acute oncology service.

Waiting time to lymph node biopsy is dependent on referral method: don't write, phone!

Introduction: Patients with lymphadenopathy are commonly referred to general surgeons for diagnostic lymph node biopsy. We were concerned at potential long waits for this service in our hospital and thus wanted to compare the efficiency of written and telephone referral with a view to identifying the optimum care pathway for these patients.

Patients And Methods: Sixty patients were included in a 2-year retrospective review (excluding referrals associated with breast lumps which were managed separately).

What proportion of patients referred to secondary care with iron deficiency anemia have colon cancer?

Purpose: Iron deficiency anemia can be the first presentation of right-sided colon cancer. There is an impression that because this presentation is nonspecific it may be associated with a longer delay from referral to diagnosis compared with those patients with symptoms of change in bowel habit and/or rectal bleeding caused by more distal colorectal cancer. This study was designed to determine the incidence of colon cancers in patients referred to the hospital with iron deficiency anemia and to determine what proportion of these patients were referred and diagnosed urgently in line with cancer waiting time targets.