Blackpool paramedic Rhian's pioneering idea helps cut A&E visits

A senior Blackpool paramedic's innovative idea which reduced A&E visits from 'frequent callers' by up to 90 per cent is now being rolled out across the country.
Rhian MonteithRhian Monteith
Rhian Monteith

Frequent callers are classed as those who call at least five times in a month, or at least 12 times in three months, and cost the NHS millions of pounds a year.

Rhian Monteith, 39, was working as an advanced paramedic in Blackpool when she noticed that a small group of people took up a great deal of NHS resources and staff time in the area.

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Working with other NHS teams, Ms Monteith drew up a list of 23 patients, many suffering from mental health problems or loneliness, who had visited A&E 703 times in the previous three months, mostly by ambulance.

She decided to try to tackle their problems by simply meeting them for a coffee and a chat.

By encouraging them to phone her rather than call 999, Rhian helped A&E attendances, emergency calls and hospital admissions drop by around 90 per cent among the group.

Eventually the patients were able to cope for themselves and came to call Ms Monteith less often.

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The High Intensity User programme was then scaled up to cover about 300 patients in Blackpool over the following three years, saving the NHS more than £2 million.

It has now been rolled out to around a fifth of the country, with 36 local health teams adopting the scheme.

NHS England now wants all remaining clinical commissioning groups to take on the idea through the RightCare programme, which aims to improve care for patients while making the NHS more efficient.

It said there were about 5,000 people who attend major A&E units around the country more than 20 times each year.

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Ms Monteith said: “This scheme is about making sure people are not left behind in society and not medicalised or criminalised.”

Tessa Walton, director of NHS Delivery, said: “We really want to see all local NHS areas using this idea to benefit their patients and services.

“The fact that it was an advanced paramedic working on the front line of patient care that spotted the potential demonstrates that, regardless of where in the health service someone works, a good idea can have a huge impact across the whole NHS.”

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