Urgent care IT improvement discussed

Seamless patching of voice and data information between urgent care providers and access to electronic patient records for everyone involved in urgent care are among the proposals in a Department of Health (DH) discussion document launched this week.

The DH is seeking views on how urgent care services provided by a range of organisations such as GP practices, walk-in centres and ambulance services can be improved.

The discussion document, Direction of Travel for Urgent Care, outlines six principles for the delivery of urgent care and makes a series of proposals about how those might be translated into a new model of care.

It says that in the future, urgent care should address both health and social care needs and that it must be made much clearer to users when, where and how to access services.

Proposals to improve patients’ ability to access services include:

• Seamless patching (voice and data) of information between urgent care providers so that people contacting services make one call only and do not have to repeat their information;
• Exploration of the need for a simple national telephone number for 24/7 access for assessment of the urgency of need, building on the work above to facilitate patching in the short term;
• Online access to accurate and up-to-date information about local services and their opening times, including self care support;
• Provision by nhs.uk of up-to-date postcode-based information about local services providing urgent care, including opening times.

The document also makes a series of proposals about how patient safety could be improved including greater use of decision support software, integrated IT systems allowing electronic access to and transfer of patient information and access to electronic patient records for all those engaged in the delivery of urgent care.

Health minister Lord Warner said it was important that local urgent care services fitted together well and provided effective triage.

He added: “Locally it makes sense to look at the range of services available in each health and social care community and grasp the opportunities offered to provide better, faster, more accessible care for people. That’s why now is the time for a wider discussion with the NHS on these issues"

The consultation is part of a commitment made by the government in its white paper Our Health Our Care Our Say, earlier this year to produce a strategy for urgent care during 2006. Among the aims of the strategy are that it will improve joint PCT and local authority commissioning, make best use of NHS Direct and address IT requirements.

The consultation is open until 5 January 2007 and the DH says it would prefer responses to be made via its online questionnaire.

Useful links

Direction of Travel for Urgent Care; a discussion document