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Urgent care
The Urgent Care section of the website has been set up to help SHAs and PCTs develop integrated Urgent Care services in their areas, through sharing a series of case studies and practical advice of what has worked well in other areas. This section will continue to be developed and information here will be frequently updated.
What's new in urgent care
Guide to Patient and Public Involvement in Urgent Care
Published: 27 October 2008
The NHS Centre for Involvement has produced a guide for commissioners and providers that provides a step by step process to implement an effective system of patient and public involvement in urgent care. This guide was produced in response to the 2006 consultation on the Direction of Travel for Urgent Care which identified low levels of public and patient involvement in urgent care.
Vision for urgent care
3 July 2008
The vision for urgent care was set out in the Next Stage Review: Our vision for primary and community care. The vision is that every member of the public should be able to expect integrated local services that provide access to urgent care, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.
To promote the vision of urgent care, we are planning jointly with the Healthcare Commission, three national Events in October to give PCTs practical options on how to commission integrated, accessible, convenient and safe services, 24/7, 365 days per year. The Events will also showcase some NHS organisations who are doing well and can present components of the vision in action already.
30 June 2008
The NHS Next Stage Review Interim Report stated that "we should consider options to improve and simplify access for the public to urgent healthcare by exploring the introduction of a single three-digit number in addition to the emergency services number 999". This commitment was included in the NHS Next Stage Review Final Report, High Quality Care for All, and we will report on these options later in the autumn.
Contact us
Urgent Care Policy Team
New King’s Beam House, 22 Upper Ground, London SE1 9BW
IT/Technical Links queries
Quality Requirements Template Technical Support
Direction of Travel and the Urgent Care Update
Published: 15 November 2007
A short review of the evidence base built up, and plans for further work to support good practice, together with a summary of the responses to the consultation on the Direction of Travel document, the outcome of the workshops, in-depth work and research evidence, pending further work on the Direction of Travel as part of the NHS Next Stage Review by Lord Darzi.
Case studies
Across the country the Urgent Care Team have been impressed by many local examples of improved services within Urgent Care. Some of these examples are established and supported by data and patient feedback, others are under development and could become examples of good practice. Over the coming months we will revisit these case studies and obtain updates on their progress and outcome measures, and where possible outcomes and lessons learned will be added to the case studies.
Urgent Care Centres
Urgent Care Centres are becoming increasingly popular in a variety of locations as a means of front-ending emergency and urgent care services with a non-appointment primary care service. This page includes presentations from established centres, and some discussion notes from a recent (October 2005) meeting to look at how the concept is being implemented and at the relative merits/pitfalls of this model.
Practical advice
This section contains advice and contacts for those looking at commissioning, monitoring or providing services in new ways. Several advice documents are currently under development and will be added to this part of the site in the coming months. If you require advice that is not available here please contact a member of the Urgent Care Team who will advise you on work in progress or if appropriate agree to the production of additional practical advice documents.
Useful documents
Links to a number of useful documents relating to Urgent Care. The most recent documents are listed first.
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