Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Monklands Hospital gears up for busiest time of year
Monklands Hospital has opened an innovative new central planning hub which is the first of its kind in Scotland as medics gear up for the busy winter period.
Staff this week launched the stateof-the-art centre – located beside its accident and emergency and medical assessment units – which gives them vital real-time information including arrivals at the emergency department, available beds, numbers of critical patients, and details of those en route in ambulances.
It came as the hospital’s emergency department recorded the busiest-ever day in its history – with 302 patients coming through the doors as the first icy conditions of the season took hold.
Health board staff have been working on their winter procedures since April – first learning lessons from last year, and then putting in place new plans and resources which include:
Recruitment of extra doctors and nurses who are already in their posts, ready to cope with the seasonal increase in healthcare demands.
Taking ownership of a new Mitsubishi 4x4 vehicle which can take to the road during severe snow to transport staff to Monklands, ensuring vital services keep running.
Extended hours at the emergency department’s existing rapid assessment centre.
Quick and early testing for flu, and Saturday opening at selected GP surgeries during the festive period.
Director of hospital services Andrea Fyfe showed the Advertiser around Monklands’ new operations command facility, which brings together key staff and will provide facilities to help manage situations such as major weather events.
Forming part of the hospital’s comprehensive winter plan to deal with the anticipated pressures of the season ahead, she said: “It’s a live centre showing how the hospital is working on a daily basis.
“It’s the first of its kind in Scotland and one of only a few in the UK; it’s exciting for Monklands to have all the key people working together and making datainformed decisions, working on issues before they become a pressure.
“We can see every patient in our hospital – how many emergencies and how many are in critical care and the high dependency unit. We can also see occupied and free beds, emergency department arrivals – there have been 131 so far today with 210 expected – and ambulances en route with an indication of priority.
“The screens show an accurate bed state all the time, so we know exactly how many are in each ward, in critical care and the intensive care unit; so we can see things straight away and if we’re running out of beds we can very quickly take action to address that.
“It shows live what’s happening at the moment; and it’s a divisional system, so we can see information for across NHS Lanarkshire and its three acute sites. It’s wonderful for medical teams.”
L a s t w inter was one of “unprecedented” and “significant pressures” at Monklands, for NHS Lanarkshire and across the country.
Icy conditions just before Christmas resulted in a trebling of the number of patients treated for fractures and dislocations caused by the weather; the festive period and January saw “unprecedented levels of winter illness” including flu across the health board area; and the Beast from the East snowstorm in March capped a lengthy period of poor weather and meant staff and patients had huge difficulty in reaching the Airdrie hospital.
Ms Fyfe said: “One of the biggest challenges in the severe weather was staff getting to work.
“We now have the keys for a 4x4 – each hospital site has a leased one at its disposal and there’s a rota for drivers to help staff get here.
“Earlier in the year we had heroic staff walking 10 miles to work; they were fantastic and saved the day. This year there’s more support and it’s very clear about where to get support to get to work.”
Service support manager Kerry Paterson added: “One of the things we recognised was recruitment of doctors and nurses and that’s been done much earlier, which was a key lesson.
“We recruit every year from universities; we’ve just recruited another 45 and the total will be nearer 60, as well as six more doctors; so we have staff for any additional beds we’d open and have flexible wards so we can open up extra beds when we need to.
“The React area – which stands for Rapid Emergency Assessment Care Team – is about admission avoidance, seeing and treating patients and having early investigations by a senior clinician.
“We also have a frailty screening system, which is about reducing moves for patients and getting them straight to the right place right away; and point-ofcare testing for suspected flu, where that will be done within 20 minutes and there can be rapid diagnosis and treatment.
“The hospital has also had a ‘winter wonderland’, raising awareness about staying safe with talks from police and fire staff, plus training for non-clinical staff to prepare them for potentially going into a ward environment, for example to help on the phone or with getting fluids and meals.”
NHS Lanarkshire is also running a major campaign to ensure staff have had their flu vaccinations; while selected GP surgeries across the health board area will be open on public holidays Boxing Day and January 2, as well as the first two Saturdays of the new year to cope with seasonal demand.
Health officials are also asking patients to consider where best to attend for any winter health issues – and reiterating that there may often be more suitable options than attending an emergency department, such as making use of pharmacies, health centres, optometrists, NHS 24 and website NHS Inform.
Ms Fyfe said: “We don’t want to put anybody off, but would ask people not to come to the emergency department unless they need to; we have to concentrate on sick patients and don’t want people sitting there for hours on end.” She added: “We’ve had a lot of feedback from staff and patients and are taking on board everything they’ve told us.”