Nurses start late shift (From Witney Gazette)

Nurses start late shift

SPECIALIST nurses at Oxfordshire's casualty units are working later into the evening to ensure patients are seen quickly.

A 2.5 per cent increase in patients attending emergency departments at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital and The Horton, in Banbury, has led to the hospitals missing a target to ensure at least 98 per cent of people are seen within four hours.

In April this year, 321 patients out of 8,351 waited longer than the allotted time for treatment, and in May, 211 out of 8,124 were delayed.

To combat the problem, nurse practitioners, who are trained to treat patients with minor injuries usually cared for by doctors, have been scheduled on to the rota late into the evening, when the hospitals often have to deal with a sudden surge in work.

It means they can take on some of the load when the full daytime shift is replaced by the night time skeleton staff.

Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust operations director Moira Logie said: "We launched an action plan with staff, and last week we continued to make improvements, and hit the target virtually every day.

"We are ensuring that nurse practitioners are available later in the evenings, which is a time when there's a particular bottleneck because people seem to present at the back end of the day.

"Clearly we don't have the same level of staff on during the night as during the day, but now we've made sure the nurse practitioners are working when we need them in the evening."

Mrs Logie said the 2.5 per cent increase in patients meant the ORH, which is responsible for both the JR and the Horton, was caring for about an extra five people every day.

But she could not explain what had caused the rise in numbers, and would not be drawn on whether it was due to confusing out-of-hours GP care.

She added: "Five people a day is a significant increase in patients coming through the system. It's good news because these people are choosing to come here, but it means we have to increase our staffing.

"There's no doubt that the public have a high regard for emergency departments generally. They are very accessible, open all hours, with good parking out of hours, which maybe a feature."