Care pathways are sometimes described as ‘integrated care pathways’ (ICP) and are a tool and a concept, that embed guidelines, protocols and locally agreed, evidence-based, patient-centred, best practice, into everyday use for the individual patient. An ICP aims to have:

• The right people,
• Doing the right things,
• In the right order,
• At the right time,
• In the right place,
• With the right outcome,
• All with attention to the patient experience

General