The NHS Confederation has launched an independent commission on urgent care for older people ‘to drive improvements in urgent and emergency care for older people in and outside of hospitals’.
The Commission on improving urgent care for older people is a joint initiative of the Confederation’s three forums – the Community Health Services Forum, the Hospitals Forum, and the Urgent and Emergency Care Forum. Aiming to ‘find workable and patient-centred solutions to address the challenges of caring for this group’, it will bring together leaders from hospitals, community services, and local government, specialist clinicians, older people’s advocates, and commissioners, and will be chaired by former NHS Trust chief executive, Dr Mark Newbold (pictured).
The Commission will hold evidence sessions, consider best practice examples, and produce interim findings, before publishing final recommendations by the year-end. Workshops will also take place to help providers and commissioners implement its findings.
The NHS Confederation says hospital and community urgent care services are ‘under unprecedented pressure’, and maintains that ‘new approaches are vital if older people are to receive optimum care when they fall ill’. To achieve this, the Confederation, which represents over 500 NHS organisations that commission and provide NHS services, says it is ‘essential that existing organisations work differently, and much more closely together’.
Dr Mark Newbold, said: “Much guidance on improving urgent care services for older people has already been issued, with key principles established and widely agreed, but progress on putting in place new services that require NHS organisations to work together has been slow. By using the NHS Confederation’s braid membership we can address the reasons, and produce recommendations that are both clinically guided and supported by all parties in local health communities – including hospitals, local authorities, community providers, and GPs. This will greatly assist with implementation of these vital services.”
The Commission will ‘take a practical look at how urgent care services can be improved’, by asking key questions such as:
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What does the optimum urgent care service look like for older people?
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Which services should change, and how will they operate?
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What new skills would be required from the health and social care workforce?
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What needs to change to ensure that acute providers can provide safe and timely care to those who require it?
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What is needed from other providers such as GP practices, community, and social services?
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Why has the shift from acute to wider community care been slow and variable, and how can progress be facilitated in the future?
