[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - Urgent Care

[Paul Allen]

On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 20:17, Andy Townsend <ajt1047 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 05/04/2020 16:36, Joseph Eisenberg wrote:
> > Can someone confirm if "urgent_care" makes sense in British English,
> > rather than "walk-in" or something else?
> >
> I'm English, and I would not know what "urgent_care" meant. After
> reading the wiki page, it is unclear whether refers to designated
> walk-in centres, or the "accident" end of "accident and emergency", or
> any other healthcare providers that offer non-appointment access?
>
> "Urgent care" wasn't a term familiar to me, but I can make a guess based on
my experiences with the NHS.

There is emergency care for people who have had a heart attack or an
accident
with a chainsaw or whatever: call an ambulance to take you to A&E.  A doctor
can't sew your hand back on.

There are minor injuries units.  They can't handle anything like the full
range
of problems that an A&E can.  But they can deal with things your doctor
can't
and that need fairly immediate treatment.  Deep cut that needs sewing or
superglueing shut (been there, done that, tried my local doctor first and
was
told by the receptionist to go to the minor injuries unit).  Stuff like
that.  You
can't wait a couple of days for an appointment but you don't need the full
A&E
treatment.  I'd class those as urgent care.  Not only do you not need an
appointment,
they don't have an appointments system (that I'm aware of).

Then there are doctors.  Usually they require appointments.  They'll handle
walk-ins that meet certain criteria for urgency, because of the Hippocratic
Oath
thing.  Been there, done that, too.  More than once.  With the doctor's
blessing:
any time I'm in that condition, walk in.  Sometimes they decide all they
can do
is stabilize you (or try to slow down the rate at which you're
deteriorating) while
an ambulance shows up to take you to A&E (been there, done that, a couple
of months ago, had 12 days in hospital).

That said, I'd be reluctant to tag any doctors' surgery as providing urgent
care:
it's something they do but they don't want people turning up with minor
injuries,
let alone those in need of emergency care.

I'd say the only real use for this tag is minor injuries units.  They don't
really
fit into the emergency category but it's useful to be able to find them in
a hurry.
These are places that don't just accept walk-ins, that's all they usually
handle.

-- 
Paul
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