Health bosses have set up a new home visiting service to try and stop patients becoming so poorly that they end up in hospital.
GPs across West Leicestershire can now call on four emergency care practitioners to visit their patients needing an urgent visit.
The aim of the scheme set up the West Leicestershire clinical commissioning group (CCG), which plans and pays for local health services, is to get urgent help to patients.
Tony Marsh, one of the emergency care practitioners, said: "Anyone over the age of 18 can be referred to us by the patient's GP.
"We will then visit the person and can either treat them at the time or refer them directly to hospital.
"We can also go back to the GP and ask them to see the person if, for example, medication may need altering."
He added: "Typical types of cases we are called to are patients with chest or urinary tract infections and COPD (chronic lung disease).
"It is very effective in preventing unnecessary hospital admissions.
"It also means that patients can have their family around them and they do feel better at home."
The emergency care practitioners also see people with minor wounds such as skin tears after suffering a slip or fall.
Mr Marsh said: "We can arrange for a district nurse to visit to change the patient's dressing."
Mavis Maude, 79, has benefited from the service.
Mr Marsh was called to her Quorn home after she called her GP when she had chest pains.
He was able to leave instructions for her to have a special blood test and found her medication needed changing.
She said: "I was feeling really ill and this lovely, polite young man came in for an hour and looked after me.
"I felt very reassured after he had been."
The service is being run by the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) which also runs a GP practice and walk-in medical centre at Leicester's Merlyn Vaz Health and Social Care Centre.
GPs refer patients who call into their surgery asking for an urgent home visit.
The doctor can then make an immediate request for one of the emergency care practitioners to visit and who aim to get to the patient within an hour.
The service began in August and is due to run until March next year when the CCG will look at making it permanent.
A similar scheme run by East Midlands Ambulance Service (Emas) from October 2013 until May this year was withdrawn after Emas bosses said they needed to focus on providing A&E services.
Nick Willmott, a GP in Hinckley and clinical lead for the CCG's acute visiting services, said: "The service is proving popular with both patients and GPs.
"It provides vital emergency support to patients in need and we are extremely pleased with performance so far."
Rob Gorringe, assistant director, strategy and development at SSAFA, added: "We are delighted to be working with the West Leicestershire CCG."
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