ENSURING HIGH QUALITY IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
In a bid to improve local emergency department services, senior nurse roles have been reviewed with a greater emphasis placed on delivering safe, quality care to patients. The previous roles of Emergency Nurse Practitioners and Emergency Service Matrons are to be brought together as a team of Emergency Matron Practitioners from 1st March 2011.
In a bid to improve local emergency department services, senior nurse roles have been reviewed with a greater emphasis placed on delivering safe, quality care to patients. The previous roles of Emergency Nurse Practitioners and Emergency Service Matrons are to be brought together as a team of Emergency Matron Practitioners from 1st March 2011.
The role redesign comes at a time when the Emergency Department is committed to implementing improvement recommendations made by the Department of Health.
The Department of Health is launching new indicators for quality care in April 2011. The purpose is to move away from the primary measures of timeliness and faster care and focus on a balanced comprehensive view of the quality of care. New indicators include patient outcomes, clinical effectiveness, patient safety and experience.
Jindy Burt, Head of Emergency Services said: “ Until now the measure for our performance in the emergency care system has been time targets, in particular, the standard which requires 95% of all patients arriving in A&E to be seen and discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours. Whilst the target of a four hour total journey time has undoubtedly reduced delays in emergency departments, it has not facilitated a method of measuring the quality of the patient experience.
The Emergency Matron Practitioners will continue to work in a clinical capacity, seeing, treating and discharging patients for minor injuries, and assisting doctors in resuscitation and the majors unit. They will now have a greater level of authority to enhance the quality of care provided to patients; leading the department in the implementation and achievement of the new quality indicators. The team will be easily recognizable in the department, wearing the purple matron uniform. Their clinical expertise and leadership will be provided from 8am-9pm every day of the week.
