Exciting new partnership to help reduce trips to Accident and Emergency

CRIS from UHNM NHS Trust on Vimeo.

Ambulance crews in North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent are being offered the opportunity to speak with a specialist in community services with the aim of reducing unnecessary trips to the accident & emergency department of Royal Stoke University Hospital.

The four week trial aims to see if the newly formed Community Rapid Intervention Service (CRIS) can support more people to stay at home instead of being taken to hospital.

CRIS provides rapid assessment, monitoring, treatment and facilitates care and support to be provided at home for up to five days to prevent unnecessary attendances and admissions to hospital.

A joint partnership between University Hospitals of North Midlands and Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, CRIS combines senior hospital consultant decision-making skills with community health and care admissions avoidance expertise.

The CRIS team will be using the next four weeks to find better ways of promoting the use of the team to help look after more patients at home, if it is the best place for them to be.

In addition to paramedics and ambulance crews, people can be referred to the CRIS team by GPs from North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, care homes, mental health services, social care staff, other community services and NHS111.

During the second week of January the team received more than 100 calls and reviewed 75 patients in their own home and 65 of them were able to stay at home with a plan and support from MPFT to get better.

Jennie Collier, Managing Director of MPFT's Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent care group, said "CRIS is already proving its worth. We are hoping that we can boost its success over the next four weeks. MPFT is expert in keeping people safe and well and in their own home, maintaining their independence for as long as possible. This is just one more way in which we can do this."

Kevin Parker-Evans, UHNM's Associate Chief Nurse, added: "Since the service launched we have received 1,400 calls and managed to keep more than 1,200 patients at home without them needing to come into hospital. We are delighted to launch this four week trial to see how we might potentially care for more people in their own home and help take the pressure off our busy Emergency Department."

Mark Docherty, Director of Clinical Commissioning, said: "This scheme has a real potential to keep many more patients out of A&E (accident and emergency) which can only be a good thing.  Currently, only around 55% of our patients get taken to hospital, but this scheme has the potential to provide many more of them with enhanced care in their own homes which ultimately will first and foremost help the patient, but will also benefit both the ambulance service and the hospital."