NHS Scotland redesigns urgent care services

NHS Scotland is redesigning urgent care services for its 5.5m citizens to reduce the pressure on A&E departments. To support the process, NHS Scotland is extending its use of Advanced’s clinical patient management software, Adastra, to transfer clinical information from the NHS 24 111 service to A&E departments. 

While people can continue to call 999 and go directly to A&E in emergencies, those without life-threatening conditions who would usually visit A&E should call Scotland’s NHS 24 111 number. They will then either be booked an appointment with A&E, if required, or be able to arrange a call back or make an appointment with the most appropriate service, such as an out-of-hours GP, minor injury clinic or mental health assessment. The move is similar to Greater Manchester’s integration of urgent care services announced in December, which also saw the deployment of Advanced software.

Adastra has been used to manage out-of-hours and unscheduled care in Scotland for the last 17 years, so it’s not a surprise to see the software extended to support urgent care services and Covid-19 hubs across the country. Using Adastra, a patient’s medical records will be able to be viewed at the urgent care service and clinicians can record the care they are providing and send details to the patient’s GP. The software links to the document management solution, Documan, which Advanced acquired in 2018 and is also used by all GP practices in Scotland.  

For more on the trends and suppliers shaping the UK health and care sector, PublicSectorViews subscribers should read our UK Health Supplier & Market Analysis report published in December.