Comprehensive service and practice development: City Hospitals Sunderland's experience of patient journeys

Considerable effort has been put into the development of integrated care pathways in the NHS in recent years. The notion of integrated care pathways, and even ‘patient journeys’, varies and the terms tend to be used interchangeably. The City Hospitals Sunderland notion of patient journeys is explicit, different, and is making a difference to patients. There are many reasons for this. Here, we describe the conception, development and effect of City Hospital Sunderland's patient journey process. In particular, there is discussion of two features of the process: the mode of patient involvement and the stakeholder sampling of these patients as a form of matrix.