PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - John Dean AU - Mike Jones AU - Philip Dyer AU - Chris Moulton AU - Vicky Price AU - Daniel Lasserson TI - Possible futures of acute medical care in the NHS: a multispecialty approach AID - 10.7861/fhj.2022-0050 DP - 2022 Jul 01 TA - Future Healthcare Journal PG - 125--132 VI - 9 IP - 2 4099 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/9/2/125.short 4100 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/9/2/125.full SO - Future Healthc J2022 Jul 01; 9 AB - Changing population demographics and needs are resulting in a continual rise in acute medical admissions. This review draws on the observations of the NHS GIRFT programme across England. Fundamental aspects of acute medical care are not universally provided, resulting in preventable hospitalisation and over-use of emergency departments. Such aspects include care outside hospitals; appropriately sized, staffed, located and configured acute medical units; multispeciality same-day emergency care (SDEC) pathways; multidisciplinary care on wards; and readmission prevention. ‘Hospital at home’ services are developing, and require local evaluation. SDEC is expanding. Digital technologies make it possible to provide acute care in and across more settings. Addressing the fundamentals of acute medical care, evaluating new service opportunities, strong clinical and managerial partnerships, better data for analytics, and a multispeciality, multiprofessional approach will enable a better level of care to be achieved.