ECP

"10 High Impact Changes" presaged the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement style of publications - documents written to be accessible and useable for the NHS at large and the public, which gave shortcuts to the achievement of service improvement. It was naturally followed by a whole spate of spin-off documents - "10 High Impact Changes for Primary Care", "10 High Impact Changes in Mental Health", etc

"Measuring the Benefits" looks at the evidence for urgent care practitioners caring for patients effectively. It compares paramedics and advanced paramedics (in research from USA, Canada, Australia and Europe) with advanced nurse practitioners and ECPs (in UK pilots).

The Competence and Curriculum Framework defines what an ECP is and what training they require. At present (July 08) the title is not a restricted title so anyone can, technically, use it; this is being taken through the long process to help it become a restricted title.

This was one of the defining reports for the Emergency Care Practitioner. Launched by Prof Sir George Alberti in October 2004, it explains what ECPs are (or can be), where they were at the time, how much they cost to develop and what the Return on Investment is (these two were my bits).

Urgent Care Ltd is a social enterprise to bring together the valuable skills of Emergency Care Practitioners and Nurse Practitioners for first contact, and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) need to get responsive clinicians providing care at the point of need.

Simon Dodds, a surgeon in Good Hope Hospital, developed an excellent piece of software to model the flow of patients/service users through a care pathway given constraints of staffing, equipment and facilities.