GIRFT Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) portfolio

This page provides links to GIRFT specialties and projects which together form the programme’s UEC portfolio. The GIRFT programme has more than 50 workstreams reviewing clinical specialties. Of these, four come under the UEC (Urgent and Emergency Care) umbrella: emergency medicine, acute and general medicine, geriatric medicine and – more recently, aligning with the GIRFT Further Faster UEC programme – adult mental health services.

We are working across these specialties to deliver system level peer reviews, backed up with data, to UEC trust teams. These peer reviews include discussion on:

An integrated approach across the system for Urgent and Emergency Care.
Emergency Department review, using the SEDIT (Summary Emergency Department Indicator Table).
Ambulance activity within systems, using the SEA-IT (Summary Emergency Ambulance Indicator Table; subpage of SEDIT).
Acute Medicine review, using the SAMIT (Summary Acute Medicine Indicator Table).
Frailty and geriatric services review, using the SAMIT 75 (Summary Acute Medicine Indicator Table for patients over 75), looking at acute medical data for older and frail patients.
Understanding ambulance conveyancing from care and nursing homes (including care homes falls protocol).
Understanding the interaction of other medical specialties within the UEC pathway (for example, mental health services, cardiology, respiratory medicine, stroke services etc).

Our UEC resources enable healthcare systems to identify unwarranted clinical and operational variation in UEC services, improve acute medical flow and patient pathways, improve ambulance conveyancing, reduce emergency department crowding, reduce ambulance handover delays, and improve patient outcomes and staff experience.

The GIRFT clinicians working within GIRFT’s UEC portfolio are:

Dr Chris Moulton: clinical lead for emergency medicine
Dr Leilah Dare: clinical advisor for emergency medicine
Dr Mike Jones: clinical lead for acute and general medicine
Dr Adrian Hopper: clinical lead for geriatric medicine

GIRFT Further Faster UEC

Alongside GIRFT’s system level peer reviews for UEC, we have expanded our on-the-ground support to NHS trusts through the GIRFT Further Faster UEC programme.

Through a team of colleagues with practical experience of delivering improvement and change within the UEC pathway – including clinicians, operational colleagues and nursing colleagues from emergency medicine, acute medicine, geriatric medicine and mental health services – the programme is supporting 20 acute providers across England.

For this programme of work, GIRFT UEC is joined by GIRFT’s adult mental health colleagues:

Dr David Somerfield: joint clinical lead for adult crisis and acute mental health

Dr Neeraj Berry: joint clinical lead for adult crisis and acute mental health

GIRFT is working closely with these 20 providers to build on their existing efforts and strengthen UEC pathways ahead of the winter period, with a particular on-site focus on:

improving Category 2 ambulance response times;

enhancing 4-hour emergency department performance;

reducing long ED waits;

shortening length of stay to improve patient flow;

understanding the interaction of mental health services within the UEC pathway.

Additional support can be requested via other GIRFT specialty programmes, eg; cardiology, respiratory medicine, stroke services.

The GIRFT Associates supporting this Further Faster UEC work are:

Dr Tara Sood: clinical advisor and senior site lead for GIRFT UEC Further Faster (East of England, London and Midlands)
Dr Peter Williams: clinical advisor and senior site lead for GIRFT UEC Further Faster (North East, North Cumbria, Yorkshire and North West)