Timely Access to Care

Principles for Recovery

Good, timely care is still going on in many places and for many people, but more and more people are facing lengthy waits for care and unreliable communication surrounding access to care. 

Primary care, community services, mental health, elective and specialist care and urgent and emergency services are all impacted by untimely access to care, and members tells us that people are finding it difficult or impossible to get the help and support they need in a timely way.  

Rebuilding timely access to health and care must be a top priority for all system leaders, but it must be done in a way that takes into account the varied needs and services individuals and their communities require.  

Principles and recommendations

In 2021, we developed a set of principles for how services should be rebuilt after the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which put people’s needs at the centre.

We created three sets of tailored recommendations tailored for:

• The government and system leaders
• People planning and delivering services
• The voluntary, community and social enterprise sector

These include assessing unmet need, clearly signpost to non-clinical sources of support and advocating for holistic, person-centred models of care. These recommendations remain relevant in an NHS that is facing rising demand, more complex needs and a depleted workforce.