Huge variation in referrals to flagship ‘urgent response’ service

Ground breaking new data on community services appears to show enormous variation between areas in the number of referrals for a “two-hour urgent response” being recorded. 

NHS England has published new provisional data on the performance of urgent community response services against a key NHS long-term plan target of reaching at least 70% of patients referred to them within two hours by December 2022.

It is the first time performance data has been published for community health services.

It also includes the number of referrals made which are reported as “in scope” of the target, and the total number of service contacts. There is huge variation in both referrals and contacts, not accounted for by the size of areas or population need. 

The publication of the first national performance data for community services was described as “an important moment for community providers” by Siobhan Melia, chair of the Community Network, which is part of NHS Providers and the NHS Confederation. She added it would “raise the profile of community services, and shine a light on the important work taking place in the sector”.

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Source: HSJ, 21 June 2022