NHSE/I for the Midlands has formally commissioned ACCOTS to commence in April 2022 with interim support and funding up until formal commencement. Hosting of the ACCOTS service went out to expressions of interest and University Hospitals of Birmingham NHS Trust and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust were successful for the West and East respectively. Whilst hosted by those organisations there is regional oversight and collaborative working across the whole Midlands region to ensure maximal coverage to support patient care.
ACCOTS aims to facilitate all transfers for capacity or repatriation and 95% of those deemed time critical. ACCOTS will be able to support the majority of time critical transfers with early identification of patients whose needs are likely to lie outside your organisation. For example, patient with low GCS requiring intubation and likely neurosurgical intervention – with notification to the coordinator ACCOTS will mobilise to your patient whilst you are intubating, scanning and gaining relevant acceptance. The ambulance services are under their own increasing pressures and the new inter-facility transfer guidance means that even time critical inter-facility transfers are an IFT 2 – so there may be a delay in obtaining an ambulance service vehicle. A copy of the National framework for interfacility transfers can be obtained via this link.
The National Service Specification can be found here
Principles for ACC Mutual Aid
This document describes the operating principles for ACC mutual aid via the Adult Critical Care Co-ordination & Transfer Service (ACCOTS) in terms of organisational, patient selection and repatriation principles. Please access via this link