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Urgent care
The Urgent Care section of the website has been set up to help SHAs and PCTs develop integrated Urgent Care services in their areas, through sharing a series of case studies and practical advice of what has worked well in other areas. This section will continue to be developed and information here will be frequently updated.
What's new in urgent care
12 December 2008: The Medicines in Unplanned Care Toolkit
The Medicines in Unplanned Care Toolkit has been produced to help all those involved in the delivery of Urgent Care, to review and look in more depth at progress and solutions for access to medicines following unplanned and urgent consultations. The web based toolkit has been written Medicines Management Network North West and supported as a project by the Department of Health.
Guide to Patient and Public Involvement in Urgent Care
Published: 27 October 2008
The NHS Centre for Involvement has produced a guide for commissioners and providers that provides a step by step process to implement an effective system of patient and public involvement in urgent care. This guide was produced in response to the 2006 consultation on the Direction of Travel for Urgent Care which identified low levels of public and patient involvement in urgent care.
Vision for urgent care
Published: 3 July 2008
The vision for urgent care was set out in the Next Stage Review: Our vision for primary and community care. The vision is that every member of the public should be able to expect integrated local services that provide access to urgent care, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.
To promote the vision of urgent care, we are planning jointly with the Healthcare Commission, three national Events in October to give PCTs practical options on how to commission integrated, accessible, convenient and safe services, 24/7, 365 days per year. The Events will also showcase some NHS organisations who are doing well and can present components of the vision in action already.
30 June 2008
The NHS Next Stage Review Interim Report stated that "we should consider options to improve and simplify access for the public to urgent healthcare by exploring the introduction of a single three-digit number in addition to the emergency services number 999". This commitment was included in the NHS Next Stage Review Final Report, High Quality Care for All, and we will report on these options later in the autumn.
Key documents in urgent care
Additional links
Contact us
Urgent Care Policy Team, New King’s Beam House, 22 Upper Ground, London SE1 9BW
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