By Gareth Iacobucci
GP consortia are embarking on a full-scale overhaul of urgent care services as they formulate their commissioning priorities for the next two years and beyond.
A clutch of the Government's first commissioning pathfinders have told Pulse that urgent care redesign is at the top of their agenda as they seek to bring more services into the community as part of the on-going QIPP agenda.
ESyDoc in Surrey, Croydon Healthcare Consortium in South London, and South Worcestershire Consortium have all earmarked urgent care redesign as a top priority, as GPs across England take on an increasingly central role in redesigning services.
HealthEast CIC in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Hunts Health in Cambridgeshire said they too were placing a big emphasis on reducing emergency admissions.
The Great West Commissioning Consortium in Hounslow, West London, said it was planning an ‘implementation of an urgent care centre so that A&E becomes a referred into service'.
In addition to urgent care, pathfinders are also focussing heavily on shifting a great volume of hospital services into primary care, management of long term conditions and greater scrutiny on GP referrals and prescribing.
Newcastle Bridges GP Commissioning Consortia said one of its key focuses was to develop ‘intermediate clinics as alternatives to planned care referrals'.
Pathfinders are prioritising urgent care overhaul
