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Rapid Assessment Clinic For Older People

Checked: 29-01-2024 by Vicky Ryan Next Review: 09-01-2025

RACOP Clinics

Rapid Assessment Clinics for Older People (RACOP) provide a one stop rapid assessment & treatment for frail elderly patients (60 and older) who need to be seen in a short time frame.

It is aimed at situations where the health of a patient is deteriorating rapidly and hospital admission may be the outcome unless there is access to diagnostics and senior clinical opinion.

In any situation where you feel that admission is likely please see the Frailty - Urgent Care page.

This is an outpatient based rapid response service for joint decision making between primary and secondary care physicians.

RACOP clinics run at South Bristol Community Hospital and Cossham Hospital.

North Bristol

See the Cossham Hospital Website for guidance on accessing the RACOP service.

The service offers:

A rapid clinic review within 1 week according to need (Red on RAG rated referrals).
A Consultant led Comprehensive Geriatric assessment (CGA)
Access to X-ray, CT head, cognitive and affective assessments and limited access to further CT and Ultrasound investigations.
Access to same day blood tests
A summary letter for urgent cases will be sent to your surgery by 3.00pm the following day

Criteria

Patients must be over 60 years old with a clinical frailty score of 4 or over (Rockwood-see referral form)
Not obviously requiring immediate emergency admission
Social circumstances clear, no intractable social crises

South Bristol

This is a consultant led service (Dr Emily Bowen) with multidisciplinary (physio and OT) support. Please note that referral is no longer via email.

Criteria

Following GP assessment the patient requires early geriatrician input
Deterioration medical or functional deterioration E.g breathlessness, confusion, self-neglect
Most likely palliative without a confirmed diagnosis
Have isolated cognitive problems, co-existing with other geriatric syndromes

Referral Guidance

In any situation where you feel that admission is likely please see the Frailty - Urgent Care page.

Cossham Hospital

Referrals should be made using the referral form which is available as an EMIS template (which will have Cossham in the title) and sent to: nbn-tr.olderpersonsrapidaccess@nhs.net

For ANY NON CLINICAL questions, transport, changing booking or anything else:

Please call the Rapid Access Older Persons clinic secretary on 0117 414 6005

Please provide a Mobile phone number or an Urgent Contact number.

South Bristol Community Hospital

Referrals can now be made via e-Referral for triage by the UHB Medicine for Older People Team (Geriatric Medicine RAS - University Hospitals Bristol). Referrals can be made by GPs or other clinicians if patient's GP has agreed to referral.

For both services please provide a clear referral letter including:

The clinical question(s) being asked.
A concise history of the presenting complaint(s).
A summary of past medical history.
A list of current medication including any adverse reactions/ allergies.
A copy of recent bloods and other relevant investigations.

Efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and agreement of these guidelines, including any content uploaded, referred to or linked to from the system. However, BNSSG ICB cannot guarantee this. This guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer, in accordance with the mental capacity act, and informed by the summary of product characteristics of any drugs they are considering. Practitioners are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and their regulators and nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

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