690,000 A&E attendances could be avoided by self-management

The Health Foundation claims that 690,000 A&E attendances could be avoided if people were supported to better manage their long-term conditions.

Published in the BMJ Quality and Safety journal, the research, which looks at how well patients feel able to manage their long-term conditions such as asthma, diabetes and depression, argues that patients who felt most confident and able to manage their condition and keep themselves well had 38 per cent fewer emergency admissions and 32 per cent fewer A&E attendances than those who felt least able.

Additionally, those who felt most able to manage their mental health conditions, as well as any physical health conditions, had 49 per cent fewer emergency admissions than the patients who felt least able.

The research supports the idea that if patients were better supported to manage their long-term conditions it would lead to a reduction in emergency admissions to hospital, A&E attendances and GP appointments, 436,000 emergency admissions to hospital and 690,000 attendances at A&E each year in a best case scenario.

The above best case scenario data would equate to seven per cent of the total number of emergency admissions and 6% of A&E attendances in England each year.

However, just 13 per cent of patients felt knowledgeable about their health condition and confident to plan and manage their care, whilst 22 per cent were likely to feel overwhelmed by the demands of their long-term condition and not take an active role in their own care.

Sarah Deeny, assistant director of Data Analytics at the Health Foundation, said: “Patients with long-term conditions manage the majority of their care, spending less than one per cent of their time in contact with a health professional. Supporting these patients to develop the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to manage their health as effectively as possible is critical to helping them stay well and could help reduce the need for a vast number of emergency admissions, A&E attendances and GP appointments.

“To ease pressure on services and improve patients’ quality of life, national policy makers and the local NHS must take action now to support people to better manage their long-term conditions. This should include NHS England prioritising support for self-management in the long-term plan for the NHS.”