Read again: Elevating UCR services for enhanced patient care

Primary care providers, integrated care boards, community providers are on a mission to boost referrals into Urgent Community Response (UCR) services, aligning with NHS England’s intensified emphasis on these vital healthcare pathways. The goal? Enhancing patient care, alleviating pressure on ambulance services, and sidestepping unnecessary admissions

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on NHS Confederation

UCR services ensure people receive the right care quickly in their own home. This can reduce the need for patients to use urgent and emergency care (UEC) pathways; reduce pressures on ambulance services and A&E departments, contributing to better and more timely care for patients; and improved patient flow through the whole health and care system.

Recommendations

Community providers, amidst operational challenges, have displayed remarkable progress in scaling up UCR services. However, aspirations to push boundaries persist, and collaborative efforts with system partners are underway. Here are strategic recommendations to fortify the impact of UCR services:

• NHS England and system partners, including community providers, should raise awareness of UCR services at both a national and local level to support system partners to better understand how and when they should be used and to foster trusting relationships at local levels. Ensuring clinical leadership and buy in from community providers, social care, primary care and the ambulance sector remains particularly important.
• NHS England could use enablers, including the forthcoming planning guidance, to build greater system-level alignment in order to deliver more care in the community.
• The Community Network would welcome the opportunity to work with NHS England colleagues to review and co-produce further guidance on what should be recorded as part of national UCR data to address challenges around variation in referral rates.
• NHS England should commission a national evaluation of the benefits and outcomes of increased usage of UCR services, both for patients and wider health and care services.
• Greater prioritisation and investment in UCR services by both national government and local systems is key to ensuring community providers are appropriately resourced to meet demand.

As we start the journey out of winter, this is a timely moment to share good practice and reflect on how practice managers, systems and community providers can optimise UCR services. The ultimate aim? To deliver maximum value to the health and care system, extending a ripple effect of benefits to colleagues in the ambulance sector and, most significantly, to patients.