The Health Foundation Briefing: Reducing emergency admissions: unlocking the potential of people to better manage their long-term conditions (August 2018)

Summary

Over the past 12 years, the number of emergency hospital admissions in England has increased by 42%, from 4.25 million in 2006/07 to 6.02 million in 2017/18. Over 60% of patients admitted to hospital as an emergency have one or more long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes or mental illness.

Patients with long-term conditions spend under 1% of their time in contact with health professionals. The majority of their care, such as monitoring their symptoms and administering medication and treatment, comprises tasks they or their carers manage on a daily basis.

To find out how able patients currently feel to manage their health conditions, the Health Foundation looked at Patient Activation Measure (PAM) scores, which assess four levels of knowledge, skill and confidence in self-management, for over 9,000 adults with long-term conditions.

In this briefing, the Health Foundation assesses the evidence for the effectiveness of a range of approaches the NHS could use more often to support patients to manage their health conditions. These include: health coaching, self-management support through apps, social prescribing initiatives and peer support including via online communities.