NHS England publishes new guidance on data collection in urgent community response standards

The recommendations set out in Urgent community response – two-hour and two-day response standards encourage a standardised approach, which will help to  ensure that community response services across England collect, record and submit data in the most accurate and efficient way. 

Urgent community response services improve the quality and capacity of care for people who experience a sudden or unexpected change in health or circumstances.  

The new guidance specifically applies to services that provide urgent crisis response care via two standards. These are: 

• Urgent crisis response care within two hours from any referral source 
• And/or reablement care within two days from any referral source except a hospital bed. 

Since 1 July 2020, data has been collected on the delivery of these two urgent community response standards and the CSP is now encouraging members to make use of the new technical data guidance. 

Rachael Wadlow, CSP professional adviser, said: ‘The CSP is keen to highlight the importance of accurate data collection, recording and reporting to ensure patients are benefitting from effective urgent community response services.  

‘Other key benefits of data collection for our members is its use in negotiations with health and social care commissioners. It will aid understanding of a services’ responsiveness, which will lead to improvement of patient experience and outcomes.  

‘Additionally, data collection allows learning and continuous quality improvement and the ability to identify gaps which may be affecting consistent delivery of the standards.  

We encourage members to use this new guidance to help support their data collection within urgent community response services.

She added that standardised data collection within urgent community response services support could also be of benefit, because it may lead to greater alignment with the Discharge to Assess (D2A) process in the hospital discharge operating model. 

All providers of publicly-funded health services in England are legally required to collect and submit community health data.  

Part of the NHS Long Term Plan

Local health service and council teams began to roll-out urgent community response services in April this year, as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, in order to support England’s ageing population and those with complex needs.  

The two-hour and two day response standards followed by urgent community response services are essential for admission avoidance, maximising patients’ independence, re-gaining functional skills and achieving a patient’s individual goals. 

The initiative is part of the NHS’s Ageing Well programme, which seeks to improve care and support for older people to look after their own health.