SHarED: Supporting ‘high impact users’ of emergency departments

In England, patients who attend emergency departments (A&E) five or more times a year represent 2 per cent of attendees but account for 11 per cent of attendances. These patients are known as ‘high impact users’.

The West of England Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) programme ‘Supporting high impact users in emergency departments’ (SHarED) supported six emergency departments in the region to introduce personalised care plans for high impact users.

We analysed whether patients enrolled in SHarED changed their use of emergency department attendance compared to other high impact users.