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Urgent care

Growing demand on services has resulted in unacceptable delays for some patients in need of urgent and emergency care – both when arriving at our Emergency Departments and if they need admission to a hospital bed. Improving the quality of care that patients receive when requiring urgent care is one of our key priorities.

Working in partnership across the NHS and social care, we are doing this in a number of ways. We are improving access to out of hospital care, by making it easier to get GP appointments and increasing our proactive care planning for people living with frailty so that we can ensure a different response to A&E, taking the pressure off our urgent care services and reducing the reliance on bedded care.

We’re also introducing new ways of working – for example, our integrated teams are helping to provide care for patients in their own home to avoid unnecessary admission to hospital where possible. Our hospitals are also concentrating on improving the way they work to ensure any unnecessary delays to patient care are avoided, and patients can be discharged home, or to an appropriate care provider as soon as possible to free up hospital beds for those who need them most.

This organisation ceased to exist on 30 June 2022, please visit our new website for NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board - Integrated Care Board :: Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care System (icb.nhs.uk)