Primary Care
We are making a real difference for our primary care partners. We are working with Primary Care Networks, local authorities, social care and other partners to deliver high-quality care for the patients we jointly serve.
We are proud to excel
Our Services and Innovations
Early Intervention Vehicle (EIV)
The EIV service provides care to patients who may have had a fall or require medical attention within their homes or at their care homes. Calls to 111 or 999 can be referred to the EIV service, providing patients with immediate care whilst helping to ensure local ambulance services and emergency departments are not overwhelmed. This is a collaborative service with Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) as partners.
The service lessens the strain on GP practices, allowing them to conduct more practice appointments whilst ensuring housebound patients get the care they need. Urgent Care Practitioners, alongside social workers from adult social care services, can visit patients who call 999 or who activate their Careline alarm. In 2022, EIV was able to prevent on average 90% of ambulance dispatches.
EIV is currently open to referrals from Careline, Hertfordshire Community Trust, HCC and NHS 111.
Enhanced Access
We are experienced providers of Enhanced Access GP services, having been a trusted provider for the Primary Care Networks (PCNs) of West Essex in the past. Our service offered pre-bookable Enhanced Access appointments on behalf of the patient’s own GP at a time more convenient for the patient and was integrated into our NHS 111 service, which we still provide.
Covering six PCNs, the service operated every day, in the evening and at the weekends, offering routine bookable primary care appointments with GPs, Nurses and Healthcare Assistants outside normal working hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
If a patient required a specialist referral following an Enhanced Access appointment, we always work in collaboration with the patient’s own GP to arrange this.
Primary Care Networks (PCNs)
As no PCNs are the same and because the needs of the population vary, we have developed a menu of support options that can help. As providers of both Urgent and Primary Care services, we understand what is being asked of PCNs and the scale of what is required to deliver so many elements successfully.
We can offer various options to help with the delivery of the Designated Enhanced Service Specifications (DES) and to best support the patients in your communities and your clinicians.
We will work with you to develop any one of the services listed below, or equally would be interested in developing concepts and ideas you may have, to support your patients, and that are tailored to your locality.
Service opportunities include:
- Enhanced Health in Care Homes
- Structured Medication Reviews
- Enhanced Access
- Back Office Support
- Acute In-Hours Visiting Service
Acute In Hours Visiting Service (AIHVS)
Our Acute In-Hours Visiting Service provides in-hours home visits to patients referred by their GPs meeting specified criteria. Our clinicians complete emergency home visits on behalf of GP Practices in East and North Hertfordshire. We partner with 59 GP surgeries in the area to treat their patients. This increases the capacity for those GP surgeries and helps to reduce 999 calls, ambulance dispatches, and hospital admissions.
An AIHVS Coordinator receives telephone referrals and will arrange a visit for a clinician, who will see and treat the patient in their own home. Information about the patient’s visit and resulting treatment is shared with their own GP via the clinical software SystmOne and directly into the patient’s own healthcare record.
Working to set criteria, AIHVS operates within normal surgery opening hours from Monday to Friday and uses a mix of clinicians, including GPs, Advanced Nurse Practitioners and Urgent Care Practitioners.
As a result, the service helps provide safe and compassionate care to patients whilst reducing pressure on other primary, urgent and emergency care providers in the region.
Virtual Waiting Room
In 2021, won the prestigious HSJ Award in the ‘Driving Efficiency Through Technology Award’ category in tandem with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group, Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Northwest Anglia NHS Foundation Trust.
Working with Content Guru’s storm® cloud telephony solution, we launched the Virtual Waiting Room within the region to help patients who call NHS 111 receive the care they need while alleviating the pressure on Emergency Departments (ED).
The service element has brought ED Consultants into our Clinical Assessment Service (CAS) to support the management of ED referrals from NHS 111 using voice and video consultations. This often means that patients are managed so effectively, they do not need to attend any further urgent or emergency care services.
Children's Rapid Response service referrals
Working together with the children’s rapid response team at the Children and Adults Community Health Services in Luton, in a move believed to be the first in the country, we introduced receiving direct referrals from our NHS 111 service, for infants and young children under five in a bid to reduce hospital emergency attendance.
This referral route provides a safe, appropriate alternative for children and young people (up to 16 years). It supports access to care that they may not have otherwise received because they couldn’t get a GP appointment or because they didn’t know where to go for help. It has been shown to support hospital attendance/ admission avoidance.
Minor Injuries Clinical Assessment Service (MICAS)
People across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have access to a minor injury specialist team within the CAS who can provide faster access to treatment and care, helping to avoid unnecessary visits to ED.
When local people contact NHS 111 – via the phone or online – for advice or treatment for a minor injury, depending on the outcome of the assessment, they can speak to a Minor Injury Specialist Clinician who will access their needs and direct them to the most appropriate service or treatment.
This can often be advice on self-care at home, booking a GP appointment, or attending a Minor Injuries Unit (MIU) or Urgent Treatment Centre for treatment or an X-Ray. Not only does this provide faster and more convenient access to treatment closer to home but helps to reduce pressure on local Emergency Departments.
Resilience Services
We can support your organisation to manage the changing demands on NHS 111 services by providing additional call handling and clinical capacity to help alleviate some of the pressures. We are experienced resilience partners and can offer seamless call re-routing to HUC’s network of NHS 111 call handlers, supported by real-time data on waiting times and call-handling capacity enabling you to utilise additional capacity when required.
We offer rapid mobilisation and improved business continuity through our flexible cloud structure, our agile approach will help you to provide a more robust service for your patients.
