Urgent Care Plan

The new Urgent Care Plan (UCP) went live on 27 July 2022.

The UCP enables clinicians across London to co-create and share urgent and advance care plans across clinical and organisational boundaries, integrating with electronic record systems that are already being used by clinicians and the London Care Record, the shared record for London.

Following the launch, Dr Lyndsey Williams, NW London GP and Clinical Lead for End of Life and Care Homes and Michelle Scaife, Programme Delivery Manager – Last Phase of Life, NW London Local Care Team joined Nick Evans, Internal Communications Manager, NHS NW London to discuss the UCP and what it means for patients and health professionals. The interview and full transcript can be accessed here.

November update: UCP support helpline for EMIS and SystmOne Users - 020 3880 0285

Following multiple ongoing issues affecting end users’ access to the UCP from the Valida client, the London Urgent Care Programme (UCP) programme team has released a new communications update as follows:

As a priority, the programme team have been working with the system supplier Better, to improve the accessibility to the UCP via this route.

The update states:

• We are sorry that the performance of the Valida client is not good enough. We acknowledge that stable and consistent access to the UCP has not been provided from the Valida client in-context link, and thus has left some users frustrated.
• As a programme, we have thoroughly investigated all 13 identified issues that have been reported over the last couple of weeks, and we have been working with Better to resolve these.
• Better have since released some Valida client updates that contain fixes to 8 of the 13 issues. Our monitoring is showing that the updates have worked.

There are two priority issues that remain to be resolve,

1. The Activate Partner product step for EMIS practices is cumbersome. At times the user credentials used for activating devices across the practice becomes locked meaning users cannot access the UCP from Valida unless this user is unlocked.
2. Configuration of the Valida client in organisations that have multiple CBD number, using EMIS system

For these two issues, Better have been communicating directly with EMIS to find solution.

UCP Valida Support

To increase the support available to our users, we have now launched a dedicated support telephone option for Valida related issues. IT helpdesks or users can call our UCP support team on 020 3880 0285 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Through our dedicated Valida support line, we are able to help users

1. Guide users through the configuration process (over the phone or via live MS Teams sessions)

2. Troubleshoot error messages seen on Valida including “Unable to access software”

3. Assist with Smartcard registration questions or issues

4. Provide EMIS Valida Configuration Credentials

5. Guide users on how to use the Valida tile to access the UCP

Please remember to first troubleshoot any issues to do with the performance of the application with your IT Support Teams, so they can rule out any local issues.

The contact us form will continue to be available on our website.

For more information, please visit our UCP Website Access Page

When calling the support line 020 3880 0285, it will be helpful to provide the following information (if applicable), as this will speed up diagnosis and issue resolution:

1. The ODS code of your organisation.
2. Any error message(s) you are seeing – if you can provide the exact wording.
3. When the error first occurred.
4. If the issue affects multiple users within the organisation.
5. If the issue affects multiple patients.
6. The version of the Valida Client – this can be found by pressing the 3 lines (hamburger menu) then ‘About’
7. EMIS users: If you are calling about a configuration issue, to fix this with the help of our team, you will need Administrative Rights in EMIS (i.e. be able to add and edit users).

Users have two alternative UCP access routes available, whilst we work to resolve the Valida issues:

1. The London Care Record Health Information Exchange (this may be known as Cerner HIE) from within your EPR systems.
2. UCP Web Portal access.

Please continue to report issues, so that we can address them and make the UCP better.

Training and support

• For general queries regarding UCP support or information please use the UCP Contact Form
• Training videos and guides for the UCP are available here.
• Stakeholders are invited to watch recordings of roadshows and view slide decks here