Urgent care delays are at the forefront of the news, with the NHS facing a “challenging winter ahead” and overwhelming demand leaving ambulances unable to reach patients fast enough. Meanwhile, a record breaking 7 million people in the UK are currently on waiting lists for elective treatment. However, the secret to easing the pressures on urgent care may in fact lie further afield. To solve ambulance delays we need to start by looking at primary care.

The knock on effect

In the wake of the pandemic, GPs have seen a sharp spike in patient demand. With staff shortages also rising, this demand regularly outpaces clinical capacity. As a result, many patients waiting for an appointment are seeking out urgent care services instead. The result? Increasing pressure is added to emergency care.

Some patients have no other option but to call on emergency services as their condition deteriorates whilst on a waiting list for treatment. Meanwhile, others are unable to book an initial GP appointment due to a lack of available space. To stop the displacement of patients to emergency services, we urgently need to boost capacity in primary care.

A question of capacity

Already under significant pressure, and facing increased demand, primary care clinicians are having to rely on clunky, outdated digital systems to organise care. Whether that’s having to manually re-enter patient data, grappling with endless email chains or dealing with busy switchboards to connect with other services, this heavy admin burden consumes a significant amount of clinical time. Cross-organisational collaboration is difficult and patients often end up being bounced between services as a result. Clinicians need the tools to communicate more directly, eliminate unnecessary admin time and streamline the referral process to triage patients to the most appropriate form of care.

Delivering a digital solution

Interoperable digital tools, which enable information and data to be directly shared between the different systems in use across primary and secondary care, are key to unlocking this clinical capacity. Digital platforms like Cinapsis connect clinicians from across these services and enable them to share specialist advice, high quality clinical imagery, and referral decisions in real-time. Advice and guidance requests can be made by primary care clinicians via an app, and accessed by a specialist consultant through the same platform. This enables informed, shared referral decisions to be made remotely, without the need for data to be re-entered or manually transferred between different systems.

By streamlining the referral process in this way, digital advice and guidance not only speeds up access to care for those who need it, but reduces the number of unnecessary referrals being made. This consequently lowers the number of people joining waiting lists, helping to reduce the excess pressure caused by people turning to emergency services.

Meanwhile, the reduction in manual administration required of primary care clinicians throughout the referral process frees up significant time for them to spend with patients. This boost in capacity enables them to see a higher number of patients, further easing the influx of demand on emergency care.

Results in practice

The positive impact of digital advice and guidance is clear. Use of the Cinapsis platform in Norfolk and Waveney led to a reduction in dermatology waiting times from an average of 50 weeks to just 48 hours. These time savings ultimately reduce the number of patients who end up having to turn to A&E, easing the pressure on emergency services and freeing up ambulance capacity.

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The key to effectively reducing ambulance delays lies in unlocking primary care capacity. Used across all specialties, interoperable digital tools like Cinapsis can provide primary care clinicians with more efficient, direct channels of communication that enable them to work collaboratively and dramatically reduce the knock on effect of increased demand landing on emergency care.

Want to learn more about how Cinapsis can help your organisation tackle the care backlog? Connect with a member of our team.