Integrated Urgent Care 

Background

We provide Integrated Urgent Care services to patients who are registered with a General Practitioner (GP) within the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care System. The IUC service describes a vision to deliver responsive, streamlined and patient-centred services ensuring people are managed by the right service, first time.

NHS 111

This is a free-to-contact medical helpline to provide the most appropriate non-emergency medical advice for patient needs. Since the COVID pandemic there has been consistently high contacts to the 111 service, with between 25,000-37,000 contacts received per month.

The provision of this service forms part of the BSW IUC contract and is provided by Practice Plus Group (PPG).  

As well as a large call-centre based in Derby, PPG also has NHS 111 team members co-located with Medvivo at Fox Talbot House in Chippenham.

To contact the GP Out of Hours Service please dial 111.  The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 

How will your call be answered? 

When you first get through to the NHS 111 Service, you will be assessed by a call advisor.

You can also access 111 Online

Read more about the NHS 111 service in this easy read booklet:

Clinical Assessment Service (CAS)

The CAS is a 24/7 service led by a multidisciplinary clinical team, supported by a team of expert non-clinical coordinators. Receiving cases from NHS 111 when a senior clinical review is required, the CAS ensures patients receive the most appropriate care. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) also use the CAS for advice and support to manage patient referrals using a dedicated direct line. Contact with the CAS leads to a variety of outcomes including advice, a prescription, an appointment or referral for further assessment with another service. Assessment is mostly carried out by telephone; however, clinicians have access to perform video consultations with patients over their mobile device. This can help to reduce the need for some face-to-face appointments or can escalate concerns more rapidly by having a visual on the patient much earlier.

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP) Practitioners are co-located within the CAS, providing improved access to mental health services in the region. This element of Medvivo’s service improves patient experience by involving mental health practitioners to identify, triage and close cases involving relevant mental health presentations. Additionally, AWP practitioners act as expert advisors to aid other clinicians with their decision-making process. 

Care Coordination 

The Care Coordination service provides timely support for ambulance crews to access alternatives to the Emergency Department where clinically appropriate, ensuring patients are seen in the setting most suited to their needs. Managed by a multidisciplinary and multiagency team of clinicians (including GPs, Hospital Consultants, Advanced Clinical Practitioners and Mental Health Specialists), the Care Coordination service is primarily based within Medvivo at Fox Talbot House.

Care Coordination operates 08.00 - 20.00. After these hours, the calls are handled by our Out Of Hours services. 

Care Coordination Model

• An organisationally agnostic, system wide service.
• Staffed by a mix of Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs), General Practitioners (GPs) and Emergency Department (ED) consultants and over seen at all times by an onsite clinical lead.
• Linked to, and supported by, each of the placed based hubs within each locality. Staff from the locality and community teams either work from the central hub or are accessed remotely.
• Referrals via ambulance Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD), Paramedics on Scene, Health Care Professionals, Care Homes, and patients on the End of Life Register, either directly or from the community teams that it supports. 
• No exclusion criteria, the team provide support for patients across the age, speciality and acuity spectrum
• Paramedic embedded in the team has access to the Ambulance Service case load and can pull appropriate cases to avoid ambulance dispatch.

Care Coordination Principles:

• Providing care in the most appropriate setting: Home – 2 hr Urgent Community Response (UCR), NHSCommunity diagnostic centre, Hospital, Emergency Department (ED), Same Day Emergency Service (SDEC), Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) @Home, Community – Primary Care, Clinical Assessment Service

• Optimise clinician and patient contact time
• Personalised approach – increasing patient satisfaction and reducing inequalities
• Improved access. Improved flow
• Developing a truly integrated workforce model

• Facilitating early clinical conversations
• Connect the patient to the right care needs
• Provide timely access to the correct care pathway, reducing stops along the way

• Facilitating early clinical conversations
• Connect the patient to the right care needs
• Provide timely access to the correct care pathway, reducing stops along the way

Our Out Of Hours (OOH) Primary Care

This service operates when In-Hours GP surgeries are closed, from 6:30pm-8:00am on weekdays, and 24/7 on weekends and bank holidays. Cases are passed to the CAS via NHS 111, and if needed, patients will have a face-to face appointment at one of the treatment centres from which Medvivo is located across BSW, or a home visit. 

In addition to GPs and Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANPs), the clinical team are further supported by Clinical Responders. Clinical Responders are highly qualified, non-prescribing clinicians, who work with a senior clinician in the CAS to oversee the management of patients being seen face-to-face by a home visit. 

Primary Care Centre Locations:

Attending a Primary Care Centre is by appointment only. We are not able to provide a ‘walk-in service’.

Our clinics are based at various locations across Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire including Bristol/Bath, Chippenham, Salisbury and Swindon. At the time of your appointment you will be provided with details of the clinic you will be attending. 

If you would like to provide feedback about any aspect of our service, please contact us