What is urgent community response?
Urgent community response service (previously known as rapid response nursing and therapies) is a community-based crisis response service which offers a hospital standard of care in people’s own homes for patients with an urgent care need (required within two hours).
The service is for patients, aged 18 and over and are registered with a GP in Middlesbrough or Redcar and Cleveland and involves an assessment and short-term intervention(s).
The two-hour response is designed to reduce avoidable hospital admission, while ensuring patients get the urgent care they need from the comfort of their usual residence.
The team is made up of staff from a variety of different disciplines such as nursing staff, therapies and support workers, meaning patients can access a range of health and social care professionals.
The referral source will typically be from:
- GPs
- The emergency department at The James Cook University Hospital
- Same day emergency care team at The James Cook University Hospital
- Frailty assessment units
- Ambulance services, or community-based health and social care.
If a person resides in their own home or a care home and experiences a sudden illness or a deterioration of a chronic illness fitting with the inclusion criteria and are stable to remain in their own home, then the team will visit them for an assessment to determine what intervention may be needed from the multi-skilled team to prevent an unplanned hospital admission.
Inclusion criteria
Fall
Decompensation of frailty
Reduced function, deconditioning or reduced mobility
Palliative or end of life crisis support​
Urgent equipment provision​
Confusion/delirium
Urgent support for diabetes
Urgent catheter care
Wound and wound infection care
Unpaid carer breakdown, which if not resolved will result in a healthcare crisis for the person they care for ​
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
Urinary tract infection
Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG)
The team can see a further varied range of conditions and we would welcome a discussion o triage your patients needs and accept them if suitable.
We are unable to see
People under 18 years of age
Residents without a Middlesbrough or Redcar and Cleveland GP
Medical emergencies requiring hospital admission such as poisoning, heart attack, stroke
A patient requiring a category 1 or 2 ambulance conveyance
Patients experiencing a mental health crisis that needs requires referral or assessment by a specialist mental health team
Patients needing detailed diagnostics and clinical intervention in an inpatient hospital setting
Contact details
All referrals are triaged by our single point of access team.
Any health professional can refer via our single point of access, 24 hours a day, seven days a week by calling 01642 065070 and selecting option 2.
This is for both ‘step up’ admission avoidance and ‘step down’ expedited discharge.