Wirral Community Health and Care (WCHC), Wirral University Teaching Hospital (WUTH) and North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) are collaborating on the delivery of a Community Assessment Service (CAS) to support Wirral residents to deliver the right care, at the right time, in the right place, every time. Wirral is one of the first in Cheshire and Merseyside to launch the CAS delivered by WCHC’s Urgency Community Response (UCR) Team.
The UCR team is now accepting lower acuity ambulance calls (category 3 and 4) via NWAS. By offering an enhanced triage, we can now determine if patients need treatment in an acute setting or if we can offer safe treatment within their home environment, Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) or pass on another WCHC service in the community.
Since its launch on Wednesday 29 October, the UCR team via the CAS has received 130 referrals, with the team preventing the need for 60 ambulance call outs and over 46 emergency department admissions.
A recent service user fed back on their experience: “I am so pleased with the speed that someone called and helped me. I panicked after falling and cutting myself, called an ambulance then you guys came to see me. Superb service!”
Chris Burquest, UCR Service Lead said: “I am very proud of the team’s response to support Wirral residents to remain at home and/or receive treatment in urgent treatment centres. We need to do all we can to support our NWAS and emergency department colleagues and this is an exciting change to UCR to promote community services in time for winter. Thank you to all the UCR and frailty virtual ward teams for your hard work and commitment to this project.”
Look out for further updates about the service and the positive impact on patients who are able to receive emergency care at home.
