Ambulance services are facing extreme excess demand driven by overspill from over-stretched GPs, patient expectations of immediate treatment and an aging population.
Increasing Ambulance Capacity
Existing 999 processes prioritise true emergencies but often still result in ambulances being despatched for patients who could be seen by their GP or even advised over the phone. The ability to identify and safely treat and divert these cases would ensure that ambulance crews are always available for real emergencies.
SELDOC provides just such a service. We have a highly experienced team of GPs who validate over 4,000 Category 3 and 4 ambulance call-outs every month.
The right help at the right time
Before an ambulance is despatched we contact people whose calls have been categorised as non-urgent and provide expert, safe medical diagnosis, advice and guidance over the phone. Any emergencies are immediately elevated to Category 1 or 2 or we refer the patient to A&E using the patient’s own transport. Other patients are managed appropriately, whether through self-care advice, an electronic prescription sent to the patient’s pharmacy of choice or with a face-to-face appointment booked directly with the patient’s own GP by SELDOC.
In all cases, our intervention helps to deliver the most appropriate care more quickly to the patient. The resulting reductions in patient wait times not only increase patient satisfaction but also reduce the number of ‘chase calls’ made as callers wait for over-subscribed ambulances.
Over the last year, we have worked with the London Ambulance Service, one of the largest ambulance trusts in the UK, to reduce the number of unnecessary ambulance call outs across the capital. Over that period, only 8% of the Category 3 and Category 4 calls processed by SELDOC required an ambulance to be dispatched.
With over 200 medical professionals in our team across South London and a leading-edge IT infrastructure which supports direct booking of GP appointments, electronic prescribing and secure data sharing with other healthcare organisations, SELDOC can help you to create a more efficient and effective emergency response system, one that truly puts the needs of patients first.