The Health and Social Care Environment Is Rapidly Changing. Critically Analyse the Implications of the Changes for Your Professional Practice and Discuss Your Responses to These Changes.
Introduction
The author will discuss within the essay, the introduction of the Emergency Care Standard and the effects on patient flow within the NHS. Also, the many changes which have implications for the author professional practice and how if possible they maybe overcome.
Background
Queuing is feature of our daily life, whether in an airport, a post office or Emergency Departments(ED), few of us wishes to wait too long for service. The clinical cost of waiting too long for urgent treatment in an ED is all too long for service. Following media headlines, pooled with powerful political agenda lead to, in the late 1990s and the early 2000s many ED in the UK were struggling with high demand and poor patient flow. During this period it was commonplace for emergency care patients to be kept on trolleys awaiting hospital admission for over 12 hours, and sometimes up to 72 hours. The NHS plan (Department of Health 2000), states that no-one should wait more than 4 hours in the ED. High profile negative press coverage and public opinion meant this issue became a priority for the government. This gave rise to the development of the post in which the author currently finds himself, namely Inpatient Placement coordinator (IPC), or, more commonly referred to as “Bed Manager”, within the Trust. Consequently with the health and social care environment is rapidly transforming there are many changes which have implications for the author professional practice.
The author will now continue to analyse and discuss some of these changes.
Bed management can be defined as: Keeping a balance between flexibility for admitting emergency patients and high bed occupancy (which) has been an indicator of good hospital management since before the establishment of the NHS (Green and Armstrong, 1994, p.20)
Bed management is an area of nursing management which has expanded significantly over the last decade or so, Proudlove N, Boaden R, Jorgenson J (2007). According to
The author will discuss within the essay, the introduction of the Emergency Care Standard and the effects on patient flow within the NHS. Also, the many changes which have implications for the author professional practice and how if possible they maybe overcome.
Background
Queuing is feature of our daily life, whether in an airport, a post office or Emergency Departments(ED), few of us wishes to wait too long for service. The clinical cost of waiting too long for urgent treatment in an ED is all too long for service. Following media headlines, pooled with powerful political agenda lead to, in the late 1990s and the early 2000s many ED in the UK were struggling with high demand and poor patient flow. During this period it was commonplace for emergency care patients to be kept on trolleys awaiting hospital admission for over 12 hours, and sometimes up to 72 hours. The NHS plan (Department of Health 2000), states that no-one should wait more than 4 hours in the ED. High profile negative press coverage and public opinion meant this issue became a priority for the government. This gave rise to the development of the post in which the author currently finds himself, namely Inpatient Placement coordinator (IPC), or, more commonly referred to as “Bed Manager”, within the Trust. Consequently with the health and social care environment is rapidly transforming there are many changes which have implications for the author professional practice.
The author will now continue to analyse and discuss some of these changes.
Bed management can be defined as: Keeping a balance between flexibility for admitting emergency patients and high bed occupancy (which) has been an indicator of good hospital management since before the establishment of the NHS (Green and Armstrong, 1994, p.20)
Bed management is an area of nursing management which has expanded significantly over the last decade or so, Proudlove N, Boaden R, Jorgenson J (2007). According to
References: Audit Commission (1992), Lying in Wait: the use of medical beds in Acute Hospitals, HMSO, London Clarke R. & Rosen R. (2001) Length of stay: how short should hospital care be? European Journal of Public Health 11 (2), 166–170. Darzi A. (2008) High quality care for all: NHS next stage review final report. London: Department of Health. Department of Health (2000) The NHS plan: A plan for investment, a plan for reform, London: DH Department of Health (2001) Reforming emergency care: first steps to a new approach, London: DH. Department of Health (2004a) Ten High Impact Changes. London DH Ford S (2008). Small rise in failure to meet A&E waiting time target. Nursing Times. [Internet] Availablefrom