A&E Clinical Quality Indicators
In December 2010, the Secretary of State announced the introduction of new clinical quality indicators for Emergency Departments. The new indicators provide a much more detailed view of the patient experience in the Emergency Department with the emphasis being very much about quality and safety in addition to the time that patients spend in the Emergency Department.In April 2011 data collection began on:
- Unplanned Re-attendance Rate
- Total Time Spent in A&E
- Left without being Seen Rate (LWBS)
- Time to initial assessment
- Time to Treatment
- Data quality
Here at Sash we are committed to improving quality and safety and the experience of patients in our Emergency Department is a top priority for the trust.
The new indicators presented a performance challenge for the Trust. There is a history of over crowding in our emergency Department and capacity issues have restricted our ability to meet the new standards and we are responding in the following ways.
Changing the way patients move
A capital works project is underway that will change the design and flow of the department. The new design will facilitate the streaming of patients to the correct location within the ED to ensure rapid assessment and treatment can take place. It will also improve the environment, meeting privacy and dignity standards and provide a better resource for paediatric services. The work will include opening up the flow between the main Department and the area that was previously use as an Urgent Treatment centre and is now an integral part of the emergency Department under our leadership.
Changing how we work
On 1st August a new arrivals process was introduced. Under the new process patients arrive in the main department and are seen by senior decision making doctor and nurse. This allows for prompt treatment and intervention for the patient. Utilisation of a senior doctor with an experienced nurse ensures that patients are seen in the correct area of the department and there is full utilisation of our urgent treatment centre and referral to speciality teams through the assessment areas This has lead to a significant improvement in time to treatment, time to assessment and ambulance handover times.
Working with our partners
We are working with our partners across the health and social care system on number of innovative programs aimed at delivering alternative services closer to peoples homes to reduce the demand on our Emergency Department.
Investing in Front Line Staff
We have also increased the level of medical support in the urgent treatment centre to support a wider range of patients being reviewed through this pathway; again this has led to an improvement in performance.
The Trusts performance against these targets can be seen in the following table which is updated monthly:
Monthly Clinical Quality Indicators for the Emergency Department (Excel spreadsheet)
