I welcome the Government’s commitment to expanding urgent care provision in community settings. This approach has the potential to ease pressure on emergency departments and enable ambulance services to focus more effectively on patients who require rapid assessment and conveyance.
However, as I discuss in the BMJ, the current Emergency Care Plan underestimates the central role that NHS general practice can and should play. Primary care is often the first point of contact for patients with urgent needs, and with appropriate support, it can manage many conditions effectively without referral to other parts of the system. There is also a risk that investing in a wide array of separate interventions—such as urgent treatment centres, community response teams, and virtual wards—without clear coordination could further fragment care. This may reduce continuity, lead to duplication, and ultimately result in less efficient use of NHS resources.
Direct investment in NHS general practice—particularly at a time when many GPs are underutilised or struggling to find substantive roles—would strengthen clinical capacity where it is most needed. Enhancing the ability of general practice to manage both acute presentations and long-term conditions more effectively would support whole-system resilience and reduce downstream demand across urgent and emergency care.
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