Making sense of urgent care: how and why do people use health services?

Urgent care typically describes healthcare for non-life-threatening conditions requiring prompt attention. Urgent care services have proliferated in England, and this wider choice has led to a complex landscape of urgent and emergency care, with blurred boundaries between different services. A study has examined the amount and nature of effort that service users undertake to make sense of urgent care and seek help from health services; it has identified three distinct strands of work, categorised as illness, moral and navigational work.

In this article…

• The landscape of urgent care services currently available in England

• How patients choose, access and navigate urgent care services

• Results of a study into the types of work involved in choosing a provider