Clinical decisions unit to open at Telford's Princess Royal Hospital
A clinical decisions unit will be opening at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital next week, health bosses have revealed.
Health chiefs say the unit aims to ease pressure on the emergency department and reduce unnecessary admissions.
Such a unit already exists at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and a similar model will now be available at PRH in the near future.
Patients will be able to use the clinical decisions unit to await test results, wait for an investigation to be completed or if they need a period of observation.
Nigel Lee, chief operating officer at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), said the unit is expected to open at PRH on Tuesday morning.
He said it would free up capacity in A&E and added: “It also means they are not taking up a bed in the hospital further on if they don’t need to. It’s all about making sure we have the best pathway of care and take the best actions for patients.”
It comes as the trust’s A&E departments are still facing pressure.
Chief executive of SaTH, Simon Wright, said its position was still “vulnerable” and a report to the trust’s board, which met yesterday, said there is still a “substantial risk” that SaTH will be unable to safely manage two emergency departments overnight.
SaTH previously put in place a contingency plan to close A&E at PRH, for up to two weeks, if a substantive consultant could not be recruited on the rota.
It comes after a consultant resigned, leaving bosses worried about the safety implications of keeping both of the county’s A&E departments open 24 hours a day.
The meeting yesterday was also told that work is being undertaken by SaTH to try and tackle problems with discharging patients.
Representatives from NHS Improvement and NHS England were also concerned about ‘boarding’ on some wards when they visited Royal Shrewsbury Hospital’s emergency department last month. No patient safety issues were reported. Boarding is a term used for patients awaiting admission, but still in the emergency department beyond agreed service standards.
The term also accounts for patients on wards who are not in properly configured beds.
Mr Wright addressed the issue during yesterday’s board meeting.
He said: “It can no longer be acceptable to board patients. We are doing it not because we want to but because there is no alternative and that can’t be right.
“We are working very closely with our partners to kick this into touch.”
