Clinical commissioners need clear thinking on urgent care
The Primary Care Foundation has called for greater clarity around urgent care commissioning in a report that highlights wide variations in the services provided.
The report highlights the need for clinical commissioners to look at the whole urgent care system – not just its constituent parts.
The report also highlights how some urgent care centres do not provide a rapid response. While some UCCs clearly had a focus on seeing and treating patients quickly, many allowed significant queues to build up. This was often associated with a process that the report has described as "triage and wait" in which patients wait once to be prioritised and then wait again for a full consultation. The report urges urgent care centres to move to a “see and treat” model that is more effective at providing a rapid response.