Derbyshire Health United launches NHS 111 with Adastra

DHU is one of the first out-of-hours care providers in England to go live with NHS 111 using Adastra.

1 December 2011 – Derbyshire Health United (DHU) is one of the first out-of-hours primary care providers in England to pilot the Department of Health’s new initiative, NHS 111, using Advanced Health & Care’s (Advanced) Adastra technology.

DHU has selected Adastra, a market-leading IT patient management solution, to deploy NHS Pathways, a clinical assessment tool that enables prioritisation and triage over the telephone. This is part of a project that will link into the East Midlands Ambulance Service’s (EMAS) Computer Aided Dispatch system.

DHU serves 1.1 million people across Derbyshire and is one of the first out-of-hours providers in England to pilot NHS 111, which will become the route to accessing urgent care across all of England by April 2013.

In October 2011, DHU implemented NHS 111’s first phase of a four phase project, which went live to 287,000 people in the Chesterfield, Bakewell and Matlock areas. In February 2012, NHS 111 will go live for 100,000 people in North Derbyshire and in March 2012, it will be available to around 300,000 people in Derby City. The remainder of Derbyshire will get the service by September 2012.

People who call NHS 111 with an urgent health issue that is not an emergency, are prioritised and routed to the most appropriate care based upon the symptoms they report. The call-handler steers patients towards a range of care options from self-care through to nurse clinicians, GPs, urgent care centres and accident and emergency departments whilst also having the capability to pass calls directly to the ambulance service in the event of an emergency. NHS 111 is a free-to-use number which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Patients’ symptoms are assessed by DHU using NHS Pathways, a clinical assessment tool that helps to determine care needs and which is embedded into the Adastra patient management system. If the call needs to be referred, the operator launches the directory of services and directs the patients to the most appropriate care. In the near future, calls will be able to be transferred electronically to EMAS.

Using Adastra linked with NHS Pathways and EMAS’s Computer Aided Dispatch system, 111 callers are provided with a seamless experience and the need to repeat information to different care providers is eliminated. By cutting out the ‘middlemen’, people are directed to the right service at the right time.

Pauline Hand, Operations Manager from Derbyshire Health United says: “We are excited to be one of the first out-of-hours organisations to deliver NHS 111 with Adastra. We’ve used Adastra for the past ten years and we have found it to be a high quality solution that is easy to use. Choosing Adastra as our NHS 111 host system was the natural next step.”

Advanced is also one of four training providers that has been licensed to deliver NHS Pathways training to urgent and emergency care service providers and will be involved in training organisations on the NHS Pathways system.

Adastra, which is the only fully compliant NHS 111 system in England that is also approved to access NHS CFH’s Personal Demographics Service and the Summary Care Record, is currently used by the majority of out-of-hours services across the UK and Ireland. For more information about the Adastra product or to arrange an appointment please contact Advanced Health & Care on 01233 722670