Voicepiece
Dean Johnson, recently appointed head of unscheduled care at the Department of Health, talks about the future of urgent care.
Patients who need urgent care are among the most vulnerable so it is vital that they get the right treatment.
Patients should feel confident that wherever they go in the NHS, they will be quickly referred to the best-equipped service and health professionals to meet their needs - and that they will get a consistent, high quality service.
A lot of good work has been done within individual NHS organisations and there are already a number of good examples of services working together in urgent care. We have seen developments within GP practices, A&E departments, out-of-hours services, ambulances and with NHS Direct. However, the links between these organisations are not always as good as they could be.
Our task is to look at provision in a whole system context. When someone has an urgent problem, how do we provide care for them, ensuring that all the different services within a community are joined up and provide a consistent quality of care?
The feedback gained during recent discussion events held with stakeholders in Leeds and London will assist us in designing a framework for what the system could look like, something we hope to have completed by the end of the summer. We are continuing to look for examples of good or innovative practice. Please get in touch if you would like to share local examples or to discuss urgent care.
I have been very encouraged to see that everyone recognises the need to act and we are not pushing on a closed door. A lot of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts are already looking at their urgent care services. We now need to build on the good examples already in place to ensure that all elements of the service work together to provide better care for patients.
Dean can be contacted at dean.johnson@dh.gsi.gov.uk or on 0113 2545930.
Dean joined the department last September after three and half years as director of planning and performance at Broxtowe and Hucknall PCT, Nottinghamshire. His previous roles have been with Nottingham Health Authority and Queen's Medical Centre.
