National Record Locator benefits

Efficiency

• spending less time in an inappropriate setting (for example in A&E or police custody)
• receiving appropriate care for my condition in a timely fashion
• improved communications about my care between partner organisations
• avoiding the need for me to provide the same information multiple times

Health

• spending less time in an inappropriate setting (for example, accident and emergency, police custody)
• enabling me to have a voice and be heard even if I am unable to communicate (for example, my preferences are taken into account or important information about me is shared with the hospital I am attending, such as I cannot feed myself or I have dementia and have specific needs)
• taking account of my physical and mental health needs when assessing my episode of care
• receiving care in a more appropriate setting
• avoid me spiralling into crisis
• being able to be in contact with people who are familiar with my condition and crisis plan, which may reduce distress and enable me to receive care at the point of crisis and avert emergency care
• improving my outcomes

Safety

• spending less time in an inappropriate setting (for example A&E or police custody)
• receiving care in a more appropriate setting
• avoid me spiralling into crisis
• being able to be in contact with people who are familiar with my condition and crisis plan, which may reduce distress and enable me to receive care at the point of crisis and avert emergency care

Efficiency 

• improving services for people with specific needs (e.g. Mental health)who present to emergency services
• patients preferences are taken in to account e.g. reducing End of Life patients being conveyed to hospital when their preference is to end their life at home
• reducing burden of printing paperwork e.g. e-redbag information transfer
• supporting more accurate understanding of local populations, allowing services to be designed more effectively around individuals’ needs
• supporting the identification of the most intensive users of local emergency physical and mental health services and improved understanding of their health and care needs and joint review / creation of personalised care plans
• improving data quality and recording of mental health need in emergency services
• improving integrated care pathways across providers, including timely communication and collaboration between acute trusts, mental health providers, care homes, service users, ambulance services, primary care, social care and care homes
• establishing an evidence base that can be easily audited to give a view of the impact of change in services to meet the needs of the frequent attenders
• joint governance and working between various providers will provide a better picture of local needs and demand, which can inform commissioning

Financial 

• saving money by avoiding duplicate care
• improving integrated care pathways across providers, including timely communication and collaboration between acute trusts, mental health providers, care homes, service users, ambulance services, primary care, social care, and care homes
• establishing an evidence base that can be easily audited to give a view of the impact of change in services to meet the needs of the frequent attenders
• joint governance and working between various providers will provide a better picture of local needs and demand, which can inform commissioning

Health

• supporting the service improvements required to meet the 2017 – 2019 CQUIN: Improving services for people with mental health needs who present to Emergency services
• supporting the identification of the most intensive users of local emergency physical and mental health services and improved understanding of their health and care needs and joint review / creation of personalised care plans for this cohort
• supporting safeguarding by sharing alerts across multiple care settings
• ensuring when there are significant risks identified in a crisis plan that the appropriate emergency services respond
• improving appropriate health and social outcomes for this cohort
• improving experience of health and care services for people experiencing a mental health crisis, including reduced stigma through increased staff education and awareness
• improving services for people with mental health needs who present to emergency services
• supporting safeguarding by sharing alerts/information across unscheduled care settings
• improving appropriate health and social outcomes for this cohort
• improving experience of health and care services for this cohort, including reduced stigma through increased staff education and awareness
• improving data quality and recording of mental health need in emergency services
• improving integrated care pathways across providers, including timely communication and collaboration between acute trusts, mental health providers, ambulance services, primary care, social care and care homes 

Safety

• improving services for people with mental health needs who present to emergency services
• supporting safeguarding by sharing alerts/information across unscheduled care settings
• improving appropriate health and social outcomes for this cohort
• improving experience of health and care services for this cohort, including reduced stigma through increased staff education and awareness
• improving data quality and recording of mental health need in emergency services
• improving integrated care pathways across providers, including timely communication and collaboration between acute trusts, mental health providers, ambulance services, primary care, social care and care homes

Efficiency 

• supporting more accurate understanding of local populations, allowing services to be designed more effectively around individuals’ needs and respecting their preferences (for example, End of Life patients who request to die at home)
• preventing unnecessary conveyances to accident and emergency e.g. by giving our paramedics more information about the individual when making clinical decisions
• saving time by reducing the need to manually request information about the patient by either ambulance crews or dispatch
• supporting safeguarding by sharing alerts across multiple care settings
• reducing ambulance dispatches if NRL enables more ‘hear and treat’ by call centre clinicians, reducing avoidable pressures on emergency services
• improving integrated care pathways across providers, including timely communication and collaboration between acute trusts, mental health providers, ambulance services, primary care, social care and care homes
• informed commissioning plans and decisions through joint governance and working between various providers will provide a better picture of local needs and demand

Financial 

• reducing ambulance dispatches if NRL enables more ‘hear and treat’ by call centre clinicians, reducing avoidable pressures on emergency services
• reducing dispatching of two-person ambulance crew, for example an Advanced Clinical Practitioner can be dispatched to a patient at the end of life who requests in their End of Life care plan to die at home
• informed commissioning plans and decisions through joint governance and working between various providers will provide a better picture of local needs and demand

Health 

• preventing unnecessary conveyances to accident and emergency by giving our paramedics more information about the individual when making clinical decisions and respecting patients preferences (for example, End of Life patients who request to die at home)
• supporting safeguarding by sharing alerts across multiple care settings
• ensuring when there are significant risks identified in a crisis or care plan that the appropriate emergency services respond
• supporting the identification of the most intensive users of local emergency services and improve understanding of their health and care needs to feed into joint review / creation of personalised care plans
• improving health and social outcomes for patients

Safety 

• improving patient safety by making patient record information more readily available in real-time
• improving experience of health and care services, including reduced stigma through increased staff education and awareness
• reducing ambulance dispatches if NRL enables more ‘hear and treat’ by call centre clinicians, reducing avoidable pressures on emergency services
• improving data quality and recording of mental health need in emergency departments
• improving integrated care pathways across providers, including timely communication and collaboration between acute trusts, mental health providers, ambulance services, primary care, social care and care homes