Unscheduled Care use in NHS Scotland

We are working to better understand patterns of use of unscheduled care in NHS Scotland.

Description

The unscheduled care system is provided by multiple services, and patient journeys are often very complex. We are developing a programme of work examining unscheduled care use in NHS Scotland, taking advantage of the availability of linked data across NHS24, GP out of hours, Scottish Ambulance Service, Accident and Emergency, and emergency hospital admissions.

Current work includes examining: (1) Variation between practices in unscheduled care use and associations with daytime GP access; (2) Frequent attenders in individual services and across services, including stability of frequent attendance over time; and (3) Patient flow between services, including triage in NHS24.

Key People

Principal Investigator

Professor Bruce Guthrie, Centre for Population Health Sciences, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh  (Bruce Guthrie's online profile)

Researchers

Dr Megan McMinn  (Megan McMinn's online profile)

Dr Peter Hodgins (Peter Hodgins' online profile)

Image by Alphotography/Getty Images