Abstract: Emergency and urgent care provide substantial health benefit across the world but increasing demand is leading to unsustainable pressure on services and a need for innovative approaches to the delivery of emergency and urgent healthcare for patients. In the English NHS in 2012-13 there were 18.3 million attendances at major emergency departments, single specialty emergency departments, walk-in centres and minor injury units, at a cost of £2.1 billion; 5.3 million emergency hospital admissions, at a cost of £12.5 billion; 7 million ambulance service journeys; and approximately 24 million calls to NHS emergency and urgent care telephone services.
Failure of the emergency and urgent care system to manage increasing demand causes substantial public concern and political impact. Delays in ambulance response or emergency department assessment can lead to worse outcomes for patients. Emergency department crowding is internationally recognised and may be associated with avoidable mortality. These issues make the delivery of emergency and urgent care an important priority for policy-makers, service providers and the public. The emergency and urgent care system inextricably links services together that rely on each other, and also that work together to deliver care for patients. This study is using data from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service and NHS 111 and linking it with hospital data (ED/Inpatient) from every acute trust in Yorkshire and Humber to analyse patient demand, flow and outcomes through these parts of the system. In addition to an overall view, we have focussed on patient groups who may benefit from a different approach to their emergency care. This includes vulnerable patient groups such as those who have mental health problems, the elderly, patients who attend frequently and also patients with primary care-related problems. The presentation will provide an overview of the project and describe some of the analyses and outputs to date.
Biography: Suzanne qualified in medicine from London University in 1990. She pursued her training initially in surgery and then specialised in Emergency Medicine. Suzanne spent a year as a Royal College of Surgeons of England Research Fellow and was awarded an MD whilst undertaking higher training in Emergency Medicine. She joined Sheffield University as a Senior Clinical Lecturer in 2001 and was promoted to Reader in 2007 and Personal Chair in 2010. She divides her time between the university and as a consultant at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust emergency department. Her main research interests include evaluating complex interventions in emergency and urgent care. She is particularly interested in the evaluation of new roles and alternative pathways of care.
Recent studies include evaluating junior doctor confidence and competence in carrying out their role in emergency medicine (The EDiT study), evaluating the use of a falls pathway by paramedics attending older people who have fallen (SAFER 2 Trial), and The AHEAD Study: Managing anticoagulated patients who suffer head injury, Using routine data to evaluate the Emergency and Urgent care System (http://clahrc-yh.nihr.ac.uk/our-themes/avoiding-attendance-and-admissions-in-long-term-conditions).