New report identifies four key principles to encourage the efficient use of urgent care resources

COLCHESTER, U.K. - July 9, 2015 - PRLog -- The commission, an independent group of thought leaders and healthcare experts chaired by Professor David Colin-Thomé, has made a series of recommendations for each principle as part of its ongoing review into the urgent care sector, with the aim of supporting a stronger position through a more tailored and informed approach to utilising resources.

Public and independent providers, policy makers, professional bodies and GPs have contributed to the report which follows Sir Bruce Keogh’s review of urgent and emergency care, where he proposed a network approach to service delivery that requires the NHS to work differently to end fragmented care.

In phase two of its review, the Urgent Care Commission aimed to develop the recommendations it made in phase one and to translate elements into more detailed and practical plans that support urgent care in practice. It involved:

·     * Developing the principles of governance for an integrated urgent care system and setting out practical guidance of how these could be implemented.

·     * Developing policy recommendations to address the issue of rising medical indemnity costs for out of hours clinical work.

·     * Providing feedback on the work that NHS England is undertaking on quality and performance frameworks.

·     * Providing feedback on the Primary Care Workforce Commission that Health Education England is undertaking.

Commenting in the report, Professor David Colin-Thomé said: “This is the culmination of our second phase of work which has involved looking in greater detail at some of the issues we identified in our original report. It sets out four key principles that apply to the governance of networks and are designed to establish a secure foundation for effective governance, while still allowing for local areas to implement the service models fit for their area. The principles are designed to encourage integration and better use of existing resource, while keeping suggestions of new resource or structures to a minimum.

“We have also looked further into the cost of indemnity cover, which was identified in our report as a barrier to increasing the urgent care workforce. We are grateful for the input of Urgent Care Commission members from the British Medical Association, and NHS England’s indemnity lead in this work, and for the engagement of the Medical Defence Union and the Medical Protection Society as we have developed proposed options for tackling this barrier.

“The newly elected Conservative government has chosen to make the creation of a 24/7 health service one of its major policy announcements. This will not be possible without a high-quality, integrated urgent care service. We hope that this follow up report by the Urgent Care Commission makes clear some of the issues that need to be resolved for this to become a reality.”

The future for urgent care in a 24/7 NHS

The Urgent Care Commission’s first report, published last year, contained eight recommendations for improving patient pathways, workforce, and quality in the urgent care sector, with GP out of hours healthcare at the heart of an integrated system. It included a survey of 1,000 GPs, revealing that:

·     * Out of hours healthcare is being hindered by a lack of integration with in-hours services.

·    * There are insufficient resources to consistently provide high quality care.

·    * The NHS isn’t giving enough attention to out of hours services.

·    * Some of the costs associated with the specialism are prohibitive.

Tweet comments about the Urgent Care Commission’s two reports using the hashtag #FutureForUrgentCare