Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Pre-admission'.
Found 12 results
-
Content ArticleThis article from Healthwatch outlines the communications patients should expect from their healthcare provider while they are waiting for treatment. It also describes how healthcare staff should involve patients in shared decision-making about their care and communicate clearly, personally and transparently.
-
Content Article
Ambulance handover to emergency care standard V1.0
Claire Cox posted an article in Handover
Emergency care needs fast, effective sharing of information. When clinicians have access to the information they need, they can better ensure safe and high-quality care for patients. To facilitate this, the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) has developed a standard for the information that is shared when care is transferred from ambulances to emergency departments. Once implemented, the standard for handover will improve continuity of care, as emergency care will have the information they need available to them on a timely basis. Whichever ambulance service brings the patient to the hospital, there will be a consistent set of information available to the emergency department. It means that patient safety will be improved, because emergency care professionals will know what medications have been administered, what diagnostic tests have been done, whether the patient has any allergies and other important information. Sharing clinical information with emergency care will also support professionals in arranging patient discharge and preventing unnecessary admissions. The PRSB have collaborated with the Royal College of Physicians Health Informatics Unit on this project. Clinical leadership was provided by clinicians from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the College of Paramedics (CoP). The standard has been developed with the support of professionals and patients. This resource includes: The standard Information model Information model (as Excel spreadsheet) Documentation Ambulance handover standard final report v1.0 Implementation guidance v1.0 Clinical Safety Case Report v0.3 - Currently being approved through the NHS Digital Clinical Safety Group Hazard log v0.7 -
Content ArticleMedicines reconciliation and medication reviews play an integral part in medicine optimisation. Medicines reconciliation is the process of accurately listing a person’s medicines. This could be when they're admitted into a service or when their treatment changes. It involves recording a current list of medicines, including over-the-counter and complementary medicines. Then, the list is compared with the medicines the person is actually using. It involves recognising and resolving any discrepancies and documenting any changes. The medicines reconciliation process will vary depending on the care setting that the person has moved into (or from). Trained and competent staff should carry out the medicines reconciliation. They should consult with a health professional. Ideally, this should be the person’s GP, nurse or pharmacist. This is a template that can be used by health professionals carrying out medicines reconciliation.
-
Content ArticleReducing emergency admissions from care homes has the potential to reduce pressure on hospitals. This is a significant national policy focus, as demonstrated by a strong commitment to improve support in care homes in the NHS Long Term Plan. Key points: Analysis of a national linked dataset identifying permanent care home residents aged 65 and older and their hospital found that on average during 2016/17 care home residents went to A&E 0.98 times and were admitted as an emergency 0.70 times. Emergency admissions were found to be particularly high in residential care homes compared with nursing care homes. A large number of these emergency admissions may be avoidable: 41% were for conditions that are potentially manageable, treatable or preventable outside of a hospital setting, or that could have been caused by poor care or neglect. Four evaluations of initiatives to improve health and care in care homes carried out by the Improvement Analytics Unit (IAU) in Rushcliffe, Sutton, Wakefield and Nottingham City show reductions in some measures of emergency hospital use for residents who received enhanced support. There are key learnings from these IAU evaluations, including a greater potential to reduce the need for emergency admissions and A&E attendance in residential care homes and the benefit of coproduction between health care professionals and care homes.
-
Content ArticleThe Care Quality Commission (CGC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. They make sure that health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and encourage care services to improve. Independent acute hospitals play an important role in delivering healthcare services in England, providing a range of services, including surgery, diagnostics and medical care. As the independent regulator, the CQC, hold all providers of healthcare to the same standards, regardless of how they are funded. In this report the CQC have seen much good and outstanding care, in particular around: responsiveness staff interactions with patients effective treatment leadership and engagement with staff and patients. However, there were a number of areas where services needed to make substantial improvements: governance clinical audit safety culture.
-
Content ArticleInformation for the Public pre-hospital emergency medicine (PHEM) feedback is a collaboration between the Princess Alexandra Hospital and the services who bring patients to them (ambulances and air ambulance teams) and provide pre-hospital care to those patients. Did you known that once a paramedic hands over the care of their patient to the hospital they don't tend to learn how beneficial their treatments were or how accurate their diagnosis was? As you can imagine this makes continually improving in order to provide the best possible healthcare to patients very challenging. The Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH), East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST), and Essex and Herts Air Ambulance Trust (EHAAT) are working together to change that. With support from the Health Research Authority's Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG) and under the supervision of the PAH Patient Panel, they have started a new project which allows the ambulance and air ambulance staff who look after a patient to find out relevant and proportional information. This will help with lifelong learning and reflection, seen as vital to learning by both the General Medical Council who oversee doctors and the Health and Care Professions Council who oversee ambulance staff.
-
Content Article
PHEM Feedback Showcase Lecture 1
Claire Cox posted an article in Motivating staff
This is the opening lecture of the 2019 PHEM (PreHospital Emergency Medicine) Feedback Showcase event. It opens with an address from Ms Jacqueline Kelly, Dean of the School of Health and Social Work at the University of Hertfordshire. It then gives an explanation of what PHEM Feedback is and how it came to exist. -
Content ArticleEmergency service workers describe how being on the front line affects their mental health, how they cope with the traumas they see and their advice for colleagues on how to stay mentally fit. Wellbeing staff from the first responder agencies also provide information about the help and support programmes available, including peer support.
-
Content ArticleThere has never been a wider mix of illnesses and issues seen by the UK ambulance services. There's also never been more different care pathways. It can sometimes be hard to know what the best thing to do is. Choice fatigue, along with patients sometime presenting in the same way as others can lead crews to make some challenging decisions. In this podcast from General Broadcast, some of the patient safety team sit down to talk about what's important when leaving a patient at home and what safety netting needs to be in place. General Broadcast covers the whole of the Ambulance service, from clinical to non-technical skills, from best practice to learning from incidents and more.
-
Content ArticleDan Phillips, Clinical Lead from the East of England Ambulance Service, talks to General Broadcast about their aims to reduce time on scene for seriously unwell patients. He looks specifically at a project called 10-10 and how to improve outcomes for stroke patients.
-
Content ArticleThe number of older people having surgery is increasing. However, older patients are more likely to have complications after surgery than younger patients as they often have multiple health conditions and age-related problems such as frailty and a decline in mental ability. These factors increase the risk of surgery and can hinder recovery. Surgical pre-assessment usually focuses on the patient’s physical fitness for surgery, not the broader range of health-related factors that are important to consider in older patients. The Perioperative care for Older People undergoing Surgery (POPS) model was developed to provide a holistic assessment of an older person’s medical, physiological and functional condition prior to surgery. The assessment is then used to inform interventions that can reduce the risk of complications. The POPS model is increasingly being implemented across the English and Welsh NHS, but there are often challenges in introducing these new ways of providing care that need to be better understood. This independent study, led by THIS Institute Fellow Professor Justin Waring, outlines the key activities and strategies that are needed for the POPS model to be successfully implemented and become part of routine practice in a hospital.
-
Content ArticleA casually centred proposal identifying how Fire and Rescue Services can improve pre-hospital care and quality of life outcomes for burn survivors. David Wales and Kristina Stiles have released this report looking at the burn survivor experience in the pre-hospital environment. The work makes ten operational recommendations and also two 'lessons learned' recommendations exploring strategic partnership working and the resulting fragmented services.
