Overview: Commissioning Urgent Care

We have now published our latest report ‘Breaking the mould without breaking the system: new ideas and resources for clinical commissioners on the journey towards integrated 24/7 urgent care’ and it is now available to download CLICK HERE.  It is published in partnership with the NHS Alliance and was originally funded by the Department of Health.

This resource is designed to offer ideas and inspiration to everyone responsible for commissioning urgent and emergency care in the UK, in particular, the new clinical commissioning groups in England. Although the current changes offer opportunities for new people to bring a fresh perspective, it is a considerable challenge when there is also a loss of potential experience and expertise. This resource attempts to capture some of the insights gained over the last few years, with the aim of accelerating the learning process of those who are coming to this for the first time.

Experience: The Primary Care Foundation and the NHS Alliance have extensive experience in reviewing and shaping urgent care policy and practice. The Primary Care Foundation was commissioned by the Department of Health between 2007 and 2010 to review and develop services across the spectrum of urgent care: from urgent care in general practice, to establishing a national benchmark for out-of-hours services, plus a review of primary care in emergency departments and an, as yet unpublished, review of urgent care centres. The NHS Alliance represents the majority of out-of-hours providers in England and has an urgent primary care leadership group, with chief executives and medical directors elected by their peers.

Evidence: the aim here is to distil the evidence from our work, highlighting what has been shown to work, as well as debunking myths. In addition, we refer to the most recent evidence from others, such as the findings from the December 2010 King’s Fund paper Avoiding hospital admissions: what does the research evidence say? If you are going to break the mould, you need to move forward based on evidence rather than assumptions or anecdote.

Case studies: these examples cover the work of urgent care commissioners over the last five years; they focus on specific aspects of commissioning, such as developing strong relationships between commissioners and provider, or addressing the needs of those in care homes. We do not present them as best practice – in fact, the attraction of some of these case studies is their honesty in addressing where they have gone wrong and how you might avoid some of their mistakes in the future.

We welcome your thoughts on any aspect of this report.  If you need support locally with commissioning urgent care, please email Rick Stern at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it