Workstream

Mapping same day, urgent care and emergency care services and review data sources

To represent the configuration of services, the workforce providing them and available data sources, across the UK.

We will complete a UK-wide mapping exercise to identify and characterise services and data sources that are relevant to research with the same day, urgent and emergency care workforce.

Service mapping

There is an interdependence between ambulance services, urgent general practice, Emergency Departments, and other urgent care services, which include Urgent Treatment Centres (UTCs) and Urgent Community Response Services (UCRs). There is significant variation and complexity in the way that same day, urgent and emergency care services are organised and delivered nationally, including their partnerships/integration with other organisations and services.

Furthermore, a proportion of the workforce within these services work across multiple areas, such as dual roles across primary and emergency care. Nonetheless, it is necessary to broadly conceptualise same day, urgent and emergency care services and the workforce that delivers them. We will produce a UK-wide description and taxonomy of current same day, urgent and emergency care services and workforce models, including new and emerging workforce initiatives

Data review

We will access and examine relevant UK-wide workforce data sources, e.g. the NHS England workforce data hub; NHS Scotland Workforce Data; Wales National Workforce and Reporting System; Workforce statistics – Department of Health Northern Ireland; the NHS Digital Emergency Care Data Set; NHS England Urgent and Emergency Care Daily Situation Reports, and emergency and urgent care surveys administered by NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and equivalent sources in the devolved administrations.

We will run analyses on these workforce data sets to explore trends in numbers, skill mix ratios, stability indexes, sickness absence and the relationships between workforce and wellbeing. This will allow us to confidently develop and test outcome measures and analysis plans for subsequent project work. We will produce descriptive accounts of available data and models of relationships and trends that will inform ongoing work.