Emergency Hospital Admission JSNA

Nationally

NHS Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan (2023-2025)

5 key strategic priorities:

1. Increasing Urgent and Emergency Care Capacity: Expanding same-day emergency care (SDEC) and virtual wards and increasing the number of beds and clinical staff.
2. Workforce Expansion and Flexibility: Recruiting more paramedics, nurses and support staff and enhancing training and retention strategies.
3. Improving Discharge Processes: Reducing long hospital stays and strengthening community and social care coordination.
4. Expanding Care Outside Hospitals: Boosting urgent community response (UCR) teams and enhancing NHS 111 and out-of-hours services.
5. Improving Access to the Right Care: Better triage and digital tools to guide patients to appropriate services and public awareness campaigns to reduce unnecessary A&E visits.

Regionally

The North East Integrated Care System has tailored interventions, including:

• Community-based urgent care hubs to divert non-critical cases from A&E.
• Enhanced GP access and urgent treatment centres (UTCs).
• Integrated discharge teams working across hospitals and local authorities.
• Digital health monitoring for chronic conditions to prevent escalation.

Locally

• Hartlepool Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC): Offers walk-in care for minor injuries and illnesses, reducing A&E pressure.
• Home First and Discharge to Assess (D2A) models: Supporting patients to recover at home with community care.
• Virtual wards and remote monitoring for frail and elderly patients.
• Collaborative working between North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and local councils to streamline emergency care pathways.