Pulling together: transforming urgent care for the people of Scotland Dr Sian Tucker

National Review 28 Recommendations 4 SLWGS Models of Care Quality and Safety Data and Technology Workforce 4 special groups identified

Facts and Figures During the one year period 1 May 2014 to 30 April 2015, almost one million contacts were made with primary care OOH services. Over the same period, NHS 24 dealt with ~1.3 million calls. This compares with ~900,000 emergency department/A&E attendances in the OOH period, amounting to 56% of their total workload. The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) dealt with ~500,000, '999' and general practice urgent calls in the OOH period.

Demographics Currently the over 75 years age group and the under 1 year age group are high volume users of OOH services. Patients aged over 75 years presently represent 8% of the Scottish population and account for nearly 20% of patients treated. The over 75 age group is projected to increase by ~32% by the year 2024 and ~66% by the year 2034

The Future Future urgent care will be delivered by well-led and trained multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral teams. GPs will no longer be the default health care professionals to see patients for urgent care, but they must continue to be an essential part of multidisciplinary urgent care teams, providing clinical leadership and expertise, particularly for complex cases. People seeking help need to see the right professional at the right time, according to need.

GPs One of the RCGP and SGPC joint principles submitted was: " It is a core professional value that GP care in the community is available at anytime and it is essential that GPs remain a central part of OOH services to ensure holistic, coordinated patient care". Recommendation 11: General Medical Practitioners (GPs), as for all health professionals, should be clinically accountable for the provision of safe effective and patient centred care. They should work within each locality and their OOH service to secure: Longitudinal care and continuity of relationships where this is important Access to care at the right time when it is required

Figure 2.1 A New Model of Out of Hours Care (Please note: F2F = face to face)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Next Steps Locally, a group to be set up to look at how to implement recommendations National Implementation Group to be set up National Group to develop a service specification for GP OOHs Test sites to be set up throughout Scotland.