Operationalising unscheduled care policy: a qualitative study of healthcare professionals' perspectives.

BACKGROUND: UK health policy aims to reduce the use of unscheduled care, by increasing proactive and preventative management of patients with long-term conditions in primary care. AIM: The study explored healthcare professionals' understanding of why patients with long-term conditions use unscheduled care, and the healthcare professionals' understanding of their role in relation to reducing the use of unscheduled care. DESIGN AND
SETTING: Qualitative study interviewing different types of healthcare professionals providing primary care or unscheduled care services in northwest England.
METHOD: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 healthcare professionals (six GPs; five out-of-hours GPs; four emergency department doctors; two practice nurses; three specialist nurses; two district nurses; seven active case managers). Data were analysed using framework analysis.
RESULTS: Healthcare professionals viewed the use of unscheduled care as a necessary component of care for patients with long-term conditions. Those whose roles involved working to targets to reduce the use of unscheduled care described a tension between this and delivering optimum patient care. Three approaches to reducing unscheduled care were described: optimising the system; negotiating the system; and optimising the patient.
CONCLUSION: Current policy to reduce the use of unscheduled care does not take account of the perceptions of the healthcare professionals who are expected to implement them. Lipsky's theory of street-level bureaucrats provides a framework to understand how healthcare professionals respond to imposed policies. Healthcare professionals did not see the use of unscheduled care as a problem and there was limited commitment to the policy targets. Therefore, policy should aim for whole-system change rather than reliance on individual healthcare professionals to make changes in their practice.