09.08.12
Intervention and integration
The NHS must prioritise certain key areas to reduce emergency admissions, especially for elderly patients, the King’s Fund has suggested.
Their advice to achieve lower admissions, and therefore free up thousands of beds, is to work with GPs and health services in the community to catch illness before it becomes so debilitating that emergency care is the only option.
Additionally, greater use of integrated care and social care could speed up the time of discharge, and provide improved services for when elderly patients are discharged from hospital.
Whilst these recommendations would undoubtedly help reduce the burden on urgent care, the reason this hasn’t been implemented before is that it is remarkably difficult.
The health service is aware that early intervention and greater integration is the way forward, to improve care and cut costs.
But how can trusts achieve this in practice? That is the real challenge that must be addressed.
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