Ambulatory Care
This report into the term ambulatory care finds out if the public understand the term, how we could better describe it, the pros and cons to the idea including whether people actually supported the idea of a home / virtual ward.
Ambulatory care is a term used within the NHS to cover non-emergency, urgent care given within an acute hospital setting without admitting patients to beds.
Summary:
Of the 32 patients spoken to 11 were surgical patients, 19 medical and 2 did not specify.
- As is consistent within an ambulatory care unit the range of health issues was wide and varying.
- The majority had been directed to the unit via another health professional/site (57% GP and 27% A&E)
- The vast majority of people did not know what ‘ambulatory care/ meant nor did they understand the purpose of the unit and felt it was not explained to them by staff.
- Everyone spoken to knew why they were in the unit and what intervention they were waiting for.
- Almost half (46%) did not know how long they would be waiting in the unit for.
- People felt that the unit offered a relatively quick and more efficient process, however others expressed concerns over a lack of connectivity, communication and transparency to their other clinicians.
- Healthwatch staff highlighted a number of variations between the medical and surgical sides to the unit such as 1 side having more comfortable seating and patients being offered food and drink whilst the other side not.
Conclusions:
In general people seemed happy about the care they received whilst in the unit, and felt it offered a less stressful experience compared to A&E. There were however concerns over continuity of care and a lack of understanding and differentiation between the unit and A&E for ward admission.
A number of recommendations were made following this report focusing on communication, unit name and post contact follow up.
Downloads
To read these and the rest of the report, click on the link below.
Ambulatory Care
