Department of Health

Website of the Department of Health

Please note that this website has a UK government access keys system.

Checklists

These checklists and other resources are designed to help emergency care planners and frontline staff reduce delays and improve emergency care services.  

Reducing delays for A&E patients

This checklist, produced with input from NHS staff, aims to help healthcare organisations streamline emergency care for patients.

Assessment and admission

This guide contains best practice advice on emergency medical and surgical assessment and admission, as well as the supporting processes that need to be in place. These guidelines aim to extend the high quality of care seen within the A&E department to the rest of the emergency pathway within the hospital.

Toolkit for the multi-disciplinary team

This toolkit provides advice on simple hospital discharges. At least 80 percent of patients discharged from hospital can be classified as simple discharges. The effective discharge of a large group of patients will have a major impact on bed capacity and improve patient experience.

Ambulance trust checklist

This checklist is aimed at helping NHS ambulance trusts and their staff to improve and streamline the care of emergency care patients.

Ambulance trust self-assessment tool

This tool aims to help ambulance trusts assess their ability to deliver the NHS Plan and enhance the quality of care for patients.

Identifying performance problems

Analysis of A&E data provides a structure for clinicians and operational managers to identify the causes of performance problems.

Improving responses for children and older people

These short documents are aimed at people working in emergency and urgent care. The tips have been developed by the relevant national clinical directors, working closely with experienced front line practitioners.

Bed capacity ready reckoner

This tool has been developed specifically for operational managers. It enables them to predict whether there will be sufficient beds or a bed shortage on any particular day, allowing pre-emptive action to prevent a beds crisis.

Emergency Assessment Units

This checklist is aimed at NHS acute trusts and their staff, to help them ensure that all possible steps are being taken to improve and streamline the care of patients.

Reducing waiting times

This tool identifies actions that reduce waiting times and improve the experience for patients requiring emergency assessment and treatment.

Emergency care networks

Emergency care networks are a way of ensuring patients receive fast convenient access to care. This checklist aims to explain more about what they do and makes suggestions for membership and terms of reference. It offers guidance to those who have established, or are setting up, emergency care networks.

Bed management toolkit

This toolkit helps trusts solve bed management issues.

Bed management demand and discharge predictors

This document provides an overview of the software for bed management demand and discharge predictors. It also supports the guidance given in the Wait for a bed checklist and the bed management toolkit.

Preventing waits for a specialist

This checklist helps chief executives and their senior management teams prevent waits for a specialist causing A&E waits to exceed four hours.

Implementing the Wait for a specialist checklist

The implementation guide helps chief executives and their senior management teams at trust level implement the Wait for a specialist checklist.

Preventing waits for a bed in A&E

This checklist is intended to help prevent waits for a bed in A&E that exceed four hours. It focuses on the need to match inflows and outflows from beds, improve corporate control of arrivals and discharges from all beds and diagnose any mismatches.

Faster access to assessment - implementation guide

Time waiting for first assessment, together with waits for a bed and waits for a specialist, is one of the highest remaining causes of A&E waits that exceed four hours. This guidance is designed to help manage and reduce these.

Improving the management of patients with mental ill health in emergency care settings

This checklist offers practical support and guidance to help those working in emergency departments, mental health trusts and ambulance trusts to improve the care of patients with mental ill health who access emergency care services. It outlines areas for action and includes examples of the ways in which some services are addressing these challenges.

Providing patients with better information in emergency departments

This toolkit offers practical support and guidance to help provide for patients in emergency departments. It is intended for anyone involved in providing information to patients, or in making decisions about how your trust communicates with them.

Managing predictable events

This guide can help to prepare for and manage events that may impact on patients in emergency care setting.

Patient group direction templates

In October 2003, the Government published templates in the National Electronic Library for Health.

SHA top tips

SHA chief executives have developed some top tips, which are intended to help SHAs support their trusts in maintaining the operational standard.

Additional links

Related Links

Comments and feedback

We welcome your ideas and comments that will shape the format and content of checklists and guidance in the future. Please click below to access a feedback form.

Access keys