New information revealed about emergency admissions to hospital for people in Devon

Collaborative research between the Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and an Exeter GP practice has revealed new information about emergency admissions to hospital.

The CCG has built a mathematical model, called the Devon Predictive Model, to identify people who are at the most risk of emergency admission to hospital.

Emergency admissions to hospital can often be frightening for older people and are expensive to the NHS, costing an average of almost £1,900 in Devon.

The model was published in the latest national Journal of Public Health and, according to leading academic and former GP, Sir Denis Pereira Gray, it has “outperformed the previous leading model.”

Developed within the NHS it was tested against the previous leading model, the Combined Predictive Model, and performed better in all five categories.

This new model reveals that age is a much bigger factor for hospital admissions than has previously been understood and that half of all emergency admissions are for people over 65. It also showed that there are 420 hospital admissions for people aged over 85 in Devon for every 1,000 registered at a GP practice.

Rebecca Harriott, chief officer of Northern, Eastern and Western Devon CCG, said: “We are proud of our CCG’s involvement in this exciting research and we look forward to seeing the benefits for patients. It is great to see this type of model being built entirely within the NHS.”

Dr Philip Evans, senior partner and research lead for the St Leonard’s Practice, welcomed the academic collaboration between the practice and the CCG which he said had worked really well.

For more information about the model, contact Todd Chenore on 01392 267 723 or for information about population ageing, contact Sir Denis Pereira Gray on 01392 218 080.