The Single Point of Access scheme was launched by Norfolk and Waveney ICB in partnership with East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST).

The scheme allows EEAST clinicians to make a single phone call to:

• speak to a clinician to agree the best care pathway for a patient
• review patient's medication requirements via clinical conversation with senior clinician, including access to different drugs
• book patients into ‘virtual ward' care which offers care at home that would otherwise be received in hospital, including access to a senior clinician (assessment and diagnostics) and drugs that would be administered at hospital.

Pete Bumphrey, business & partnerships lead for EEAST, said: ‘It's another conversation that our clinicians can have to be certain about what is the best way to treat a patient, and the doctors are working from the same location as the urgent community care services are based, so they can make decisions about capacity based on real-time information.'

The scheme is the latest development led by the Unscheduled Care Co-ordination Hub (UCCH). UCCH has been running for one year and involves clinicians from different health and care providers working together to ensure patients receive the best care in the right place. Since its inception UCCH has helped 10,000 patients and prevented more than 7,500 unnecessary ambulance dispatches.

The hub is now working with Virtual Wards, Network Escalation Avoidance Team (NEAT), and Urgent GP services and is aiming to increase support for care home patients, the ambulance service and acute hospital trusts.

UCCH is run in partnership by NHS Norfolk and Waveney ICB, Integrated Care 24, EEAST, Norfolk County Council, Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust and East Coast Community Health Care.