Delivery of elective care in the future.

The delivery of elective care needs to be reimagined to tackle the increasing demand for services that is currently outstripping the available capacity; a problem exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article highlights key strategies to improve the delivery of elective care combined with local and national examples of best practice. It is based on key recommendations from the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme: the UK's largest healthcare quality improvement programme operating across 42 clinical specialties. GIRFT has visited every integrated care system in England over the last 12 months to discuss elective recovery and the learning from these visits is captured in this article. Rethinking the delivery of elective care, utilising advances in technology, and harnessing the power of data to identify unwarranted variation and targeted areas for improvement, will dramatically change the future delivery of elective care for the better. © Royal College of Physicians 2022 All rights reserved.