Urgent Community Response (UCR) Service
The Urgent Community Response (UCR) team provides a community rapid response to Lewisham borough residents seven days a week, Monday to Friday from 8am to 8pm and Saturday and Sunday 8am to 6pm. This service treats patients at home to avoid a hospital admission or readmission.
All referrals are triaged by the on-call Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) and if clinically necessary seen within two hours (patients will also be seen later that day or the next day if required) by a multidisciplinary team of ACPs with support from consultants, the hospital frailty team, and colleagues in emergency care.
Patients who require a two hour response will need to be referred by 6pm Monday to Friday or 4pm Saturday and Sunday.
If needed, a short-term intervention can be put in place for the patient for up to five days.
The service is designed for people over 18 who are housebound and registered with a Lewisham GP. Click here to read the UCR Operational Policy – which includes the full inclusion and exclusion criteria – to ensure that the UCR team can help your patient.
Any healthcare professional can refer a Lewisham patient into the service. Below is a list of who is currently referring into the UCR service:
- GPs
- One Health Lewisham
- Paramedics
- 111
- Same Day Emergency Care team at University Hospital Lewisham
- Emergency Department at University Hospital Lewisham
The below videos explain more about the service, and the second includes some handy scenarios that demonstrate what the UCR team can do for Lewisham residents: