Region leading attempts to transform delivery of emergency care

The West Yorkshire Urgent Emergency Care network will launch mobile treatment services and, working with mental health providers and the police, create rapid crisis response and street triage services.

It is one of two areas, the other being north-east England, which will be working with large populations to try to integrate care on a greater scale.

Six smaller networks, in South Nottingham, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Barking and Dagenham, Leicestershire, Solihull, and South Devon and Torbay, have also been selected as ‘’vanguard’’ projects.

They will cover smaller local systems, which may include hospitals and surrounding GP practices and social care.

The move aims to see the “transformation” of urgent and emergency care for more than nine million people by changing the way organisations work together to provide care in a more joined up way.

NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said it would link up the “often confusing array of A&E, GP out of hours, minor injuries clinics, ambulance services and 111 so that patients know where they can get urgent help easily and effortlessly, seven days a week”.

Another aim is to break down boundaries between physical and mental health.

It follows the first wave of 29 vanguard sites which were announced in March and are all part of NHS England’s five-year plan, the Five Year Forward View.

The announcement about the new sites comes as frontline emergency services face rising pressure, with increased A&E attendances and emergency admissions, and both ambulance and NHS 111 services facing rising demands.