NHS South East London’s Consultant Connect wins Urgent Care Award
NHS South East London has been awarded Consultant Connect’s 2025 Urgent Care Award, recognising the outstanding success of our urgent community response telephone line that has been introduced across all six south east London boroughs. This year alone, the service has supported over 3,000 calls with an impressive 95% first time connection rate.
This achievement reflects the impact of adopting Consultant Connect as our single point of access for Urgent Community Response, a decision championed by Avril Satchwell, Associate Director of Planned and Urgent Care in Lambeth and Southwark. Avril said, “This award highlights how powerful a single point of access can be when it is embedded consistently across a system. Consultant Connect has been the key enabler of our Urgent Community Response single point of access, giving clinicians the ability to make faster, safer decisions and direct patients to the right care first time. It is helping us avoid unnecessary emergency department attendances, support people closer to home and deliver high quality urgent community care for our residents across south east London.”
Across the health system, Consultant Connect is already widely used by clinicians in primary care, community health, acute and mental health services, providing them with rapid access to specialist advice through telephone, photo and messaging channels. It supports more than 50 specialties across south east London and helps steer patients to the right care first time. While Consultant Connect is not a service that patients directly see or access, it is the mechanism through which clinicians are able to obtain the right advice and make appropriate pathway decisions on their behalf.
In boroughs such as Lambeth and Southwark, clinicians also benefit from access to same day emergency care phone lines, enabling faster senior clinical decision making and reducing avoidable attendances to hospital emergency departments. South east London has seen significant impact, with 84% of urgent care calls routed via Consultant Connect, avoiding emergency departments by directing patients to more suitable alternatives.
Dr Nancy Kuchemann, NHS South East London’s Deputy Medical Director, Co-chair of Partnership Southwark and a local GP said “Having immediate access to senior clinical advice through Consultant Connect means I can make safe decisions much faster. It reduces delays for patients and helps me direct them to the right care first time.”
This award highlights how a collaborative approach and consistent use of Consultant Connect continues to strengthen access to optimised clinical pathways and urgent care services for all residents across south east London.