DHU Healthcare is involved in a pilot service aimed at reducing hospital attendance at Emergency Departments (EDs) at Northampton and Kettering General Hospitals.
Demand across all Northamptonshire health services has continued to see dramatic increases and has been at a critical level for a number of months. This has prompted commissioners to ask the Urgent Care Northamptonshire Service, normally providing an out of hours service as part of DHU Healthcare, to introduce an ‘in-hour’ element to ensure patients are directed to the right place to reduce demand on emergency services.
The two month pilot introduced two GPs and a dispatch controller, working remotely, to provide additional in-hours clinical support via telephone consultations for urgent referrals made through the 111 service. The new Clinical Assessment Service (CAS) is intended to relieve the pressure on GP services, connect patients to the right services much more quickly and reduce the likelihood of those patients visiting EDs or Urgent Treatment Centres.
Partnership Working
Catriona Strickland is the Head of Clinical Services for DHU Urgent Care Northamptonshire, she said: “We are always looking for opportunities to work collaboratively with local healthcare partners across the county, which provides additional resilience and improves the experience for our patients. This new way of working has supported the creation of a CAS that provides patients with a locally led and timely response to their clinical needs.
“There is a concern that if patients don’t get the right advice quickly, they will look elsewhere for support, resulting in avoidable ED attendance. This service is intended to enable a faster response, giving patients the right treatment at the right place and protecting emergency services for those who need them. We are grateful to our commissioners for the additional funding. It means our clinicians have the equipment to providing us with additional resilience and ensure that they have the capacity to work remotely and support the service during periods of high demand”
The CAS clinicians call patients within a specified one to two hour time frame, to follow up on the details given to them by the 111 health advisors. They undertake a full telephone consultation with the patient and signpost them to the most appropriate local services, in line with their clinical need. Patients will call with a variety of different requirement from an e-prescription, follow-up via their own GP or an onward referral to an ED or UTC. Clinicians can use the GP Connect system to book an appointment for the patient with their own GP or a local Urgent Care Centre, reducing the pressure on emergency services.
“A genuine benefit to our colleagues and their patients…”
Catriona added: “Our clinical and operational colleagues within the Out of Hours service have done an incredible job to support the creation of this CAS pilot. Thanks to the team, we were able to launch the project within a month of the initial request from commissioners which is extraordinary and has been a genuine benefit to our colleagues and their patients.
“We’re now at the assessment stage to look at how the pilot has been received by gathering more extensive patient feedback and talking with our NHS and health care partners to see what went well and what can be improved. Initial reports have been extremely positive and we will continue to assess, monitor and adapt the pilot for our patients and staff with the hope that it will be extended beyond the initial two months.”