Emergency Care departments around the country are struggling to meet the needs of the numbers of people attending them to seek care. Previous research has shown that a large proportion of people who have attended emergency departments would have been better served by going to their GP or did not ultimately require medical treatment at all. As a result, the healthcare resources used to support these attendees are redirected from those who do need urgent care.
Working closely with the Urgent Care theme, we have been exploring how best to identify these ‘non-urgent’ individuals and the types of health issues they are seeking help for. Our analysis aims to provide information to commissioners and NHS decision makers about groups of people who may require improved support to access services appropriate to their needs.
More details of the work done so far are available on the ARC blog (https://www.yharc.local/news-events-and-media/blogs/overflow-in-urgent-care)