Podlasek et al highlight an issue that many clinicians recognise daily: the UK still lacks a clear, shared definition of urgent care, and this ambiguity continues to shape how services are organised, funded, and understood by the public.1 Their analysis is timely, but the definitional work they call for does not need to start from scratch. Mature international frameworks already exist, and they offer a way to bring coherence to a space that has long been fragmented.
The Royal New Zealand College of Urgent Care (RNZCUC) provides one of the most robust and clinically grounded definitions of urgent care worldwide. It describes urgent care as unscheduled, time-sensitive assessment and treatment for acute illness and injury that is non-life-threatening but still carries meaningful risk if not addressed promptly.2 What makes this definition powerful is its simplicity and its clinical focus. It is not tied to a particular building, service label, or commissioning structure. Instead, it centres on patient need, acuity, and the competencies required to deliver safe care.
This stands in contrast with the UK, where urgent care is often defined by service type — urgent treatment centres, minor injury units, NHS 111, general practice — rather than by the nature of the presentation. As the authors note, general practice absorbs a large proportion of urgent care activity, yet this work is largely invisible in national datasets and inconsistently recognised in policy. This is unsurprising when GPs are simultaneously expected to manage chronic disease, deliver preventive care, undertake screening, and respond to same-day acute presentations. These competing demands create complexity that no single service model can sustainably absorb.
A clearer, internationally aligned definition would allow the UK to design integrated but distinct pathways for acute presentations. Dedicated urgent care clinicians and multidisciplinary teams could work alongside general practice, improving timeliness, reducing variation, and giving patients a clearer route to help when they need it most.
Ultimately, definitional clarity is not an academic exercise. It is a practical step towards delivering care closer to home, improving access, and realising the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan for a coherent urgent and emergency care system.3
- © British Journal of General Practice 2026
