Accessing Urgent or Same Day Community Response
Information for health and social care professionals
Health and social care professionals can contact our Single Point of Access for patients who may need an urgent or same day community response to help avoid a hospital conveyance or admission. Patients are clinically triaged by experienced practitioners to determine the most appropriate response for their needs.
This number is only for health and social care professionals:
Call: 0800 177 7789, Option 1 – 8am – 8pm, 7 days a week
Patient criteria
MUST be:
- 18+ years
- Registered with a Buckinghamshire GP (not Milton Keynes).
- Reason for referral is to avoid imminent hospital admission or conveyance.
- Person must be safe to remain at home until a clinician can visit.
CAN be, but not limited to:
- Fall without serious injury or loss of consciousness or fracture. Can lift patients off the floor.
- Decompensation of frailty.
- Clinical Frailty Score >4 (people over 65 years).
- Reduced function or mobility which may also need short term intermediate care support.
- Palliative/end of life crisis support.
- Urgent equipment for safety and optimising function.
- Increased or new confusion.
- Acute worsening of delirium or dementia.
- Urgent catheter care if unknown to district nurses.
- Urgent diabetes support – resolved hypoglycaemic episode or blood sugar management risks admission.
- Informal carer breakdown which puts the person they care for at risk of admission.
- Minor illnesses or infections (for example: UTI)
- Admission alternative for those requiring hospital-level interventions, such as IV antibiotics / diuretics / Point of Care Testing / or non-life-threatening urgent investigations.
Exclusions
- Acute trauma or acutely unwell needing emergency assessment, or treatment, in hospital or Urgent Treatment Centre (e.g. cardiac, stroke, head injury, abdominal pain, sepsis).
- Life-threatening conditions (i.e. catastrophic haemorrhage, airway compromise, ineffective breathing)
- Any mental health problems as primary presentation
- Overnight or 24-hour care, medium or long term care needs (e.g. social care, private care, medication administration)