• Format: Printed copy
• Author(s): Sarah Purdy
• Publication date: 16 Dec 2010

Emergency admissions to hospital are costly to the NHS and also cause disruption to planned health care. Considerable efforts have been made within the health service to reduce emergency admissions, but few primary care trusts have been successful, with some primary care trusts recording an increase.

In order to successfully reduce avoidable emergency admissions, we need to fully understand which interventions are the most effective. The King's Fund commissioned this review of research evidence to establish which interventions work in avoiding emergency or unplanned hospital admissions.

This paper aims to address the following questions:

• What interventions work in reducing avoidable admissions?
• Who is at risk, and how do we identify them?
• Which admissions are potentially avoidable?
• Which interventions work in:
  • primary care
  • social care
  • emergency care
  • discharge from hospital.