Hospital is not always the most appropriate place for patients to receive care, neither is it always necessary for an ambulance to be dispatched to offer an urgent response. In many cases, people can be effectively cared for at home or in the community. This is particularly true for those who are frail and/or managing long-term and often complex health conditions.
Multidisciplinary urgent community response teams deliver holistic, wraparound care for individuals. They are well-placed to monitor patients for a short period of time after a fall or minor illness and can make arrangements to support ongoing care needs where necessary, often through other community-led initiatives such as virtual wards or social care.