20.08.14
NHS 111 service should be ‘enhanced’ to ease A&E pressure
The NHS 111 service should be ‘enhanced’ to ensure that patients receive highly responsive, effective and personalised services outside of hospital, easing the pressure on busy A&E departments, experts have said.
NHS England has published an update on the Urgent and Emergency Care Review, which has led to the revision of commissioning standards for the NHS 111 service.
In a letter to health secretary Jeremy Hunt published last year, outlining the first stage of the review, Sir Bruce Keogh said: “It is essential that we transform the whole urgent and emergency care pathway, from end to end.”
The updated standards describe the core requirements and quality metrics that all NHS 111 services should adhere to from now on.
In particular, these standards will ensure that clinicians within the NHS 111 service have access to relevant aspects of a patient’s medical and care information, including knowledge about contact history and medical problems – so that the service can help patients make the best decisions.
Additionally, patients with a specific care plan must be treated according to that plan and, where patients have specific needs, they must be transferred to the appropriate professional or specialist service.
Commissioners of the NHS 111 service must also consider how increased clinical advice should be secured for their population, and NHS 111 must be able to directly book an appointment with the urgent or emergency care service that can deal with the patient’s problem, as close to their location as possible. This could include a booked call-back from a GP, an appointment at an urgent care centre or an appointment within a hospital emergency department.
On top of this, NHS 111 must continue to be able to identify potentially life-threatening problems and dispatch an ambulance without delay and support the patient prior to the vehicle arriving.
NHS England has established a series of pilots and evaluation projects to test out new initiatives that will support its vision for urgent and emergency care, which it says will go live in 2015-16. The pilots will also inform further development of the commissioning standards and evaluation reports will be available later this year.
Professor Keith Willett FRCS, director for Acute Episodes of Care at NHS England, said: “From the conversations I have had I know that there is great consensus about the problems with the current urgent and emergency care system, and throughout this review we have heard many ideas about ‘what’ needs to change.
“But crucially I believe we are now close to achieving the same degree of consensus on ‘how’ this change might be practically delivered – which I consider to be a real breakthrough.”
The College of Emergency Medicine stated that it welcomes the update on the Urgent and Emergency Care Review, especially as it shares the vision set out of ‘highly responsive effective and personalised services’ for those patients with less serious urgent care needs.
It also believes the piloting of new aspects of the NHS 111 service is good news. However, it added that it is important that an independent evaluation of these pilots is reported before widespread changes are made on interim reports from early adopter sites.
Dr Cliff Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said: “There are a number of important pieces of work here being moved forwards. The development of NHS 111 can have a profound impact on the numbers of patients attending emergency departments so it is important that these pilots are properly evaluated.”
(Image: c. London Ambulance)
Tell us what you think – have your say below or email [email protected]