Emergency ambulance service involvement with residential care homes in the support of older people with dementia: an observational study

Table 2 Main reasons and outcomes of emergency ambulance call outs to care homes

Reason for emergency ambulance call out as recorded in care notes	Outcomes as recorded in care notes
	Non-conveyance*	Same-day discharge**	Unscheduled admittance***	Total N	Total%
Trauma^†	13	23	24	60	41.7
Respiratory	1	4	8	13	9.0
Cardiovascular Complaint	0	3	7	10	6.9
Gastrointestinal Complaint	0	1	7	8	5.6
Genitourinary Complaint	0	8	0	8	5.6
Altered Mental Status	0	3	4	7	4.9
Non-specific Complaint	2	2	2	6	4.2
Cerebrovascular Complaint	0	1	4	5	3.5
Muscoskeletal No Trauma	0	2	2	4	2.8
Seizure	0	0	3	3	2.1
Circulatory Complaint	0	0	1	1	0.7
Ear, Nose & Throat Problem	1	0	0	1	0.7
Unknown (Missing^‡)	18	0	0	18	12.5
Total N	35	47	62	144 (100%)
Total%	24.3	32.6	43.1

*Resident attended to by emergency practitioner at the care home; not conveyed to hospital.
**Resident conveyed to hospital A&E; discharged back to the care home on the same day with no overnight stay in hospital ward.
***Resident conveyed to hospital A&E; admitted to hospital ward for overnight stay.
^†Only 3 out of 60 emergency ambulance call outs for trauma were unrelated to falls in the home.
^‡The CSRI captures reasons for admission to A & E and hospital, but not reasons for emergency ambulance call outs when there is no conveyance to either. As such, for 18 call outs resulting in non-conveyance, reasons were not extracted from care notes and remain unknown. However, the majority are likely to be due to trauma following a fall in the home.

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