11:45 - 13:00

The Scottish Ambulance Service’s Role in Redesign of Urgent Care

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) is present in every community in Scotland 24 hours a day, 7 days a week responding to 999 calls. These calls relate to a wide range of conditions, from immediate life-threatening emergencies through to calls from people concerned about symptoms or injuries that are manageable through non-emergency, urgent care pathways.

Their aim is to provide all patients with high quality person-centred care. To support this at the outset of the (COVID-19) pandemic, SAS adapted their delivery model to utilise the clinical skills of Advanced Practitioners by introducing remote clinical assessment and video consultation.

In this session, delegates will hear how this and other interventions in the Ambulance Control Centre (ACC) has resulted in the following:

• 24% of 999 calls being managed clinically without ambulance dispatch; and
• A further 20% of patients being further managed in communities post ambulance dispatch.

This represents a significant contribution to managing whole-system flow and taking pressure off Accident and Emergency Departments and the acute system.

The national Redesign of Urgent Care programme recognises the SAS role in pre-hospital urgent care and through work with the wider health and social care system, SAS can utilise community pathways as well as Flow Navigation Centres.

In this presentation, delegates will hear more about how the SAS are acknowledging the impact of the pandemic on mental health patients.