NHS 75: How community care could ease ambulance pressure

ITV Central's Lewis Warner reports on the efforts of community care initiatives to ease pressure on the ambulance service.

An elderly woman, who was stuck on the floor of her garden after a fall, says it was like seeing 'angels appearing' when an emergency response team turned up to help her.

After receiving the call, East Midlands Ambulance Service identified the incident as a case for a community medical responder so that an ambulance would not have to be dispatched.

Within an hour, Urgent Community Response (UCR) had arrived in Mansfield to help Joyce back into the house, offer a medical check and take her blood pressure and temperature.

Health bosses in the region say community services like this help to free up hospital and ambulance beds while easing pressure on the health service.

For Joyce, she felt lucky to be treated in the comfort of her own home, without having to wait for a long time in a busy hospital environment.

She said: "It was a big worry to me, I was in a dark place. But to see them come, it was like angels appearing.

"It was a great sense of relief, because I have experienced having to go into hospital. They keep you in to do tests, then you have to wait for that.

"The freedom of having someone come here was so wonderful. The world seems a different place when you go into hospital, but when you're at home, you can make sense of it."

Since April this year, the Urgent Care Response team in Nottinghamshire has helped more than 60,000 patients.

Advanced Clinical Practitioner Jon Boden is a part of this team taking the pressure off the ambulance service and preventing unnecessary hospital admissions.

He said: "The majority of people that we see who have fallen at home have minor injuries, hence the reason why they don't need to be admitted to hospital."

Another service in the area is a new programme called 'virtual wards' - allowing patients who are already in hospital the chance to be discharged and have their treatment continue at home.

Community matron Annalene Tucker-Sterling is one of 15 medical nursing staff in Nottinghamshire helping to free up beds.

She said: "At the minute, we're in a crisis with the NHS. So if we can save beds for those people that really need them, then that's the key.

"We're helping get patients back home, and there's evidence to suggest that patients recover quicker in their own environment.

Asked if she would like to see this initiative rolled out widely, Annalene said: "I think it's going to take over. It is the only way we can support our colleagues in hospitals."

As the NHS marks its 75th anniversary, community care givers say initiatives like theirs need to be expanded to ease pressures so that the health service can endure for decades more.