Better Sooner More Convenient Primary Care - New Zealand Doctor

Appendix Three: Acute care
1. Aspirational statement
All West Coasters will know how to appropriately access acute and after hours care and will be
satisfied with the service received.
2 Project overview
This project has three main aspects: introducing HML nurse phone triage after hours, increasing
community knowledge of how to access after hours care appropriately, and upskilling nurses to
provide more acute care after hours and within office hours.
It builds on the West Coast After Hours Plan which is available for review.
If patients who are acutely unwell are unable to be seen during the day by their usual GP/nurse
team, then this increases the demand for after hours care and inappropriate use of emergency
departments. The project on the redesign of core general practice care addresses this issue.
3 Problem definition
Key problems in the provision of both after hours care and acute care within office hours are:
the burden of after hours call
lack of community understanding of how to access after hours services
high rates of triage 5 attendances at Greymouth ED, both during office hours and after
hours
variation in training and skills of nurses providing after hours and acute care.
For greater detail on the current situation see Appendix One.
Recruitment and retention and decreasing the waiting time to be seen in general practice are
important contributors to after hours issues; they are covered in other project plans.
Business case appendices V12 AC 25Feb2010 Page 18