Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on the potential causal link between the availability of NHS walk-in centres and levels of Type 1 accident and emergency attendance in the vicinity of such centres.

NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review published in 2013, set out a vision to transform radically the way in which Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) services are provided, shifting care outside of the hospital setting, and close to patients’ homes where possible whilst ensuring those with serious or life threatening emergency needs are treated in centres with the very best expertise and facilities.

The recommendations of the Review are now being implemented. A key enabler for transformation of urgent and emergency care has been the establishment of 23 Urgent and Emergency Care networks across the four regions of England. These networks are responsible for describing and creating agreed, effective clinical pathways of care and work across traditional boundaries to ensure that all patients are managed, that mutual trust is developed in the system, and that no clinical decision is made in isolation.

The Urgent and Emergency Care Review has encouraged co-location of community-based urgent care services in coordinated Urgent Care Centres with emergency departments where it makes sense to do so.

Networks have provided local expert advice to Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) footprints to develop the UEC element of their plans to ensure patients can access the appropriate care they need as conveniently as possible for their defined geographies including access to definitive care of all categories, severity and complexity of emergency. Networks are now supporting STPs to describe the detail of these plans for practical delivery.