Are referrals to hospital from out-of-hours primary care associated with National Early Warning Scores?

Background: The National Early Warning Scores (NEWS) is used in various healthcare settings to augment clinical decision making, and there is growing interest in its application in primary care. This research aimed to determine the distribution of NEWS among patients in UK out-of-hours (OOH) general practice and explore the relationship between NEWS and referral of patients to hospital. Methods: A historical cohort study using routinely collected data from the Birmingham Out-of-hours general practice Research Database. This includes patients who attended a large out-of-hours general practice provider in the West Midlands, UK, between July 2013 and July 2018. All adults who were seen face to face who had a full set of physiological observations recorded were included. NEWS was calculated post hoc, and subsequent hospital referral was the outcome of interest. Results: A NEWS was calculated for 74 914 consultations. 46.9% of patients had a NEWS of 0, while 30.6% had a NEWS of 1. Patients were referred to hospital in 8.5% of all encounters. Only 6.9% (95% CI 6.3% to 7.5%) of the 6878 patients referred to hospital had a NEWS of ≥5. Of the 1509 patients with a NEWS ≥5, 68.6% (95%CI 66.2% to 70.9%) were not referred to hospital. When considering how NEWS was related to hospital referral, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) for patients seen in their own home was 0.731 (95%CI 0.681 to 0.787). For patient seen in treatment centres, the AUROC was 0.589 (95% CI 0.582 to 0.596). Conclusions: Patients seen in out-of-hours general practice have low physiological acuity. Those referred to hospital have a slightly higher NEWS overall. NEWS is poorly associated with hospital referral, although the association is stronger for patients seen in at home compared with patients seen in treatment centres. Implementing NEWS-based referral from OOH general practice is likely to increase hospital admissions.</p

Understanding tensions and identifying clinician agreement on improvements to early-stage chronic kidney disease monitoring in primary care : a qualitative study

Funding This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research School for Primary Care Research (NIHR SPCR) (reference:120). JE was also supported by the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research programme (Reference: RP-PG-1210-12012). DSL and LL are supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research CentrePeer reviewedPublisher PD

Point of care blood tests during home visits by out-of-hours primary care clinicians; a mixed methods evaluation of a service improvement

Objectives We aimed to evaluate test usage and patient and clinician experience following the introduction of point-of-care (POC) blood tests into a primary care out-of-hours service. Design A mixed methods service evaluation comprising quantitative records of the clinical contexts of tests taken and qualitative interviews with clinicians. Research permissions and governance were obtained for patient interviews. Setting Out-of-hours primary care. Participants All patients requiring home visits from the service during the implementation period. Interventions The i-STAT POC blood test platform was introduced to two bases providing home visits for a period of 8 months. Venous blood samples were used and two cartridges were available. The CHEM8 cartridge measures sodium, potassium, chloride, total carbon dioxide (TCO2), anion gap, ionised calcium, glucose, urea, creatinine, haematocrit and haemoglobin. The CG4 cartridge measures lactate, pH, PaO2 and PCO2, TCO2, bicarbonate, base excess and oxygen saturation. Primary and secondary outcome measures The proportion of home visits where tests were taken, the clinical contexts of those tests, the extent to which clinicians felt the tests had influenced their decisions, time taken to perform the test and problems encountered. Clinician and patient experiences of using POC tests. Results i-STAT POC tests were infrequently used, with successful tests taken at just 47 contacts over 8 months of implementation. The patients interviewed felt that testing had been beneficial for their care. Clinician interviews suggested barriers to POC tests, including practical challenges, concerns about time, doubt over whether they would improve clinical decision making and concern about increased medicolegal risk. Suggestions for improving adoption included sharing learning, adopting a whole team approach and developing protocols for usage. Conclusions POC tests were not successfully adopted by an out-of-hours home visiting service in Oxfordshire. While some clinicians felt they could not add value, in other cases they resulted in improved patient experience. Adoption could be promoted by improving technical, team and education factors