You can help us get the Right Patient to the Right Team at the Right Time
Urgent and Emergency Care remains a key challenge throughout the NHS, and we’re already seeing that pressures are increasing as we head into the busy winter period.
Our focus right now and throughout the coming months will be to make sure that the “Right Patient, is seen by the Right Team, at the Right Time”.
This means ensuring that our patients receive the most effective care from the moment they attend our Emergency Department, through to their discharge.
To support this, we are improving our processes for patient flow and discharge across the Trust and working closely with our local health and social care partners.
We have already made significant changes to ensure more patients are seen by the right teams at the right times. This includes:
• Streaming patients out of our Emergency Departments to a more appropriate point of care, such as a Walk in Centre or contacting NHS111.
• Extending our Geriatric Same Day Emergency Care service at the Royal, which enables suitable patients to return home on the same day – around 75% of these patients a week are discharged to their place of residence and the average length of stay on the unit is between 4-6 hours.
• More virtual wards to monitor and give direct care to patients in their place of residence, rather than them needing to be on a ward.
• Introducing a dedicated reablement ward at Broadgreen Hospital, with an aim to maximise independence, enabling more patients to return home to the best place for them as quickly as possible.
How can I help?
There are a lot of different roles involved in improving patient flow across the Trust, and if you are involved in the care of a patient, some of the things you may be able to consider include:
• Initiating TTOs as soon as possible
• Ensuring a twice-daily review of patients in acute beds and agree who no longer meets the clinical criteria to reside
• Moving patients from assessment areas appropriately
• Ensuring patients are put on the appropriate discharge pathway from the day of admission
• Keeping the patient flow team updated regularly with information about patients due to be discharged
• Engaging in good discharge practice e.g. Use the Home First Act Now eLearning Programme
• Making sure patient transfer transport is booked
• Ensuring that, for any patients likely to require health and social care, that carers are involved in early discharge planning conversations
• Liaising with discharge managers in relation to people on pathway 0
- Ensuring twice daily review of patients in acute beds and timely updating of patient status in OPTICA
• Reviewing all patients who are awaiting diagnostic requests and to consider whether such tests could be undertaken as outpatients
• Ensuring all patients who can be discharged without complex discharge support have everything in place to support discharge early in the day by arranging TTOs and transport bookings the day before discharge
• Maximising use of the site’s discharge lounge
Please share this message within your teams to help us make sure our patients are looked after in the best place for them, which will help us manage pressures across our hospital sites during the winter months and beyond.
