Impact of centralisation of specialist services on sister hospital specialty opinion demand and consultant job plans: two years on

摘要

We have previously reported the impact of centralisation of respiratory services on specialty demand and consultant job planning one year after service reconfiguration and creation of the North Bristol Lung Centre (NBLC) at Southmead Hospital in October 2006.1 Despite targeting respiratory admissions to the NBLC, there remained a need to provide specialist respiratory support to the sister hospital (Frenchay) by a consultant-led weekday respiratory opinion service. We have re-examined the impact of providing such a service on consultant workload over the same six-month period as before in the following year, two years after the initial reconfiguration. We wanted to assess whether demand at the sister hospital had diminished with further time after reconfiguration (as an indicator of successful centralisation of respiratory specialist demand to the NBLC).