Urgent care teams to treat the elderly at home and in aged care

Thousands of elderly people will avoid the need to go to emergency departments as the NSW government moves to expand the state’s urgent response services.

Older people sometimes end up stuck in hospital, too frail to be discharged.

Thousands of elderly people will avoid the need to go to emergency departments as the NSW government moves to expand urgent response services delivering care in homes and aged-care centres.

The teams of GPs, nurses and allied health staff will deliver specialist and multidisciplinary medical and nursing services, as well as provide access to social workers, physiotherapists, pharmacists, dietitians and occupational therapists, as part of a $124m program that will eventually expand to 25 urgent care services.

The urgent care services will be available at no cost to people aged 65 and older. They will be provide comprehensive assessment and treatment without the need to visit an emergency room.

Urgent conditions the teams will commonly treat include ­infections, dehydration, skin tears, lacerations and wounds. Those needing more acute care will be referred to hospital.

Teams are already operating in Sydney’s southeast and north, with Health Minister Ryan Park announcing the introduction of a new team for southwest Sydney, where public hospitals are particularly overloaded.

The teams in the southeast and north of the city will be ­expanded, with an additional 10,000 older patients expected to be able to avoid trips to an emergency department.

An extra 36 healthcare staff will be working on the new and expanded teams.

They will operate seven days a week and be available for call-outs between 8am and 8pm, and between 8am and 10pm in aged-care facilities.

It adds to the InTouch Urgent Care service providing care to residential aged-care patients in western Sydney.

The transporting of elderly residents to hospitals because care is not available within aged-care homes is a major cause of hospital logjams. Frail older people often get stuck in the system and deteriorate in hospital, ­becoming too weak to be discharged.

The policy expansion comes as public hospitals across the country come under pressure as the population ages and patients struggle to get affordable and timely appointments with GPs.

State governments have ­increasingly been stepping up to fund primary care services that are ordinarily a federal ­responsibility.

They have been establishing their own urgent care facilities, recognising that the outlay ultimately saves the health system money in taking pressure off public hospitals which are jammed and in a spiral of declining performance.

“We will treat more patients, deliver more staff and offer more hours through our expansion of these urgent care response teams across Sydney,” Mr Park said.

“The expansion of these ­services will make it easier for older people to access high-quality urgent care in the right place, at the right time, from the comfort of their home.

“At the same time, we can ­alleviate the pressure on our local hospitals by reducing unnecessary presentations to our emergency departments.”

The federal Labor government also has a policy around ­urgent care services and is establishing urgent care clinics across the country to take pressure of hospital emergency departments.