Interdisciplinary working within urgent community response and intermediate care services

Urgent community response services are central to the NHS strategy of moving care into the community to reduce hospital admissions. As part of intermediate care, urgent community response teams rely on interdisciplinary working. However, there is limited understanding of how healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, experience and undertake this collaboration. This article explores the available evidence on healthcare professionals' experiences within interdisciplinary urgent community response teams.

A scoping review guided by the PRISMA-ScR framework was conducted. Databases searched included CINAHL, EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane Library and Open Grey, covering studies from 1999 to 2025.

A total of 42 sources were included, most of which were UK-based. Key themes identified were role flexibility, shared decision making and flatter hierarchies. Nurses and support workers were well represented, while paramedics were underrepresented. Facilitators included joint visits and shared records; barriers included unclear roles and limited interdisciplinary training.

Effective interdisciplinary working underpins urgent community response success. Further research is needed to understand workforce experiences, especially of collaborative models and emerging roles.