1/12 How well is NHS restoring services? Performance statistics out today. We want to highlight fantastic frontline work being done to recover services and recognise progress made. See the first edition of our new briefing series here: https://nhsproviders.org/restoring-services-nhs-activity-tracker/september-2020. Thread follows.

2/12 NHS had to pause some treatments to focus on covid-19 patients and is now working, at full stretch, to recover all services and levels of activity as quickly as possible. But there are some really difficult covid related constraints to overcome...

3/12 Keeping patients safe must be no.1 priority. So less beds and waiting room capacity due to social distancing. Less time to treat patients because of need to wear cumbersome PPE. Need to get patients tested. Many hospital trusts reporting between 15-30% loss of capacity.

4/12 Everyone in NHS acutely aware of potential impact of delays in treatment for patients. CEOs report staff are now working as hard as they did in the first peak of covid-19 to recover services and activity levels. This hard work is really paying off as today's stats show.

5/12 Today's stats show you can definitely see the glass as half empty - "look at how far activity levels are from pre covid-19 levels and look at growing waiting lists". Or you can see it as half full and filling rapidly - "look at how quickly activity is being recovered".

6/12 There were 50% more elective surgery operations in July 2020 than in the month before. There were 25% more diagnostic tests and 17% more urgent cancer referral appointments. These figures shows the rapidly gathering pace of recovering activity volumes.

7/12 Trusts have rightly been focussing on urgent cancer referrals. The number of people who attended an outpatient appointment following an urgent cancer referral from a GP has more than doubled between April and July. It's up by 126% and now back to pre-pandemic levels.

8/12 Colonoscopy tests data show good example of glass half full / empty phenomenon. They have gone from a low of 3,500 in April to over 28,000 in July - that's an amazing 700% increase, thanks to some really ingenious solutions around speeding up deep cleaning etc. but...

9/12 But the overall volume of colonoscopy tests is only half of the pre-COVID levels. So, we can both celebrate the achievement but also recognise that there is some way to go to recover pre-covid levels of activity given the particular covid related constraints.....

10/12 ...Though we need to remember that these figures are five weeks old and we know that trusts have made very rapid progress over August and the first week of September. There is going to be a lag between what has been achieved and what is formally reported.

11/12 Very struck by how many CEOs say they're recovering services faster than they expected a few months ago. Really hard work and CEOs say very grateful for the ingenuity and commitment of front line staff. E.G. see @LandDHospital case study here: https://nhsproviders.org/restoring-services-nhs-activity-tracker/september-2020.

12/12 And let's not forget, please, that ambulance and mental health services and most community services, have continued to provide the same services, at the same or higher levels of activity, throughout the last six months. This was definitely not a covid only service.