Emergency care discharge summary standard
MEMBER BLOGS
Professor Jonathan Benger
NHS England
Date: 13th July 2017
From children experiencing asthma attacks to elderly care home residents with chronic conditions, nearly two million people attend emergency services each month.
To better meet patients’ needs, the Urgent and Emergency Care Review has outlined improvements for emergency care to make the service more responsive, without putting resources under additional pressure.
Two developments are set to help with this. The first is the Emergency Care Data Set, which takes effect from October 2017, and the second is the Professional Record Standards Body’s new emergency care discharge summary standard.
The new standard will support the digital transfer of relevant information from emergency care to GPs so they can provide continuing care after discharge. For those with recurrent or chronic conditions it means they should be better managed in the community.
The standard is designed for the UK’s urgent and emergency care services including 24-hour consultant-led services, specialist emergency services and urgent treatment centres, including minor injuries units and walk-in centres. It’s also closely aligned to PRSB’s e-discharge summary standard.
The standard will complement the new emergency care data set, due this autumn. It has become clear that we need better quality information to understand why and how patients are attending emergency services, so we can make these sustainable for the longer term, and avoid unnecessary attendances and admissions.
For more information on the emergency care discharge summary standard contact the PRSB at info@theprsb.org
July 13th 2017 – Professor Jonathan Benger, National Clinical Director for Urgent Care, NHS England and Consultant in Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust