Specialist screening before OPAT referral avoided almost 14,000 inpatient days over three years, audit finds

A three-year audit (5,024 referrals) of an outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) service examined the impact of infection specialist advice at the point of referral [Audit/Data]. It found that 29.2% of referred patients were not taken onto the OPAT service following specialist screening, and estimated this generated 13,909 avoided intravenous or inpatient patient-days over the three-year period.

This is a large-scale, multi-year service audit rather than a single-site snapshot, and its quantified estimate of avoided inpatient/IV-therapy days gives commissioners a concrete transferable benchmark rather than a qualitative impression of screening’s value.

The finding supports strengthening formal specialist screening at the point of OPAT referral, rather than referring all appropriate-looking cases directly onto the service: a substantial proportion of referrals in this audit were more appropriately managed through oral therapy or an alternative pathway once assessed by an infection specialist, converting referrals into avoided admissions or shortened inpatient stays.