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Patient information<br />
service on the move<br />
People visiting Airedale Hospital<br />
can now easily find out more about<br />
health conditions or available<br />
support as the drop-in patient<br />
information service has moved to a<br />
more convenient location – on the<br />
landing above the main entrance.<br />
It will be staffed between 9.30am<br />
and 4pm, Monday to Friday, and it<br />
includes an enquiry service. Visitors<br />
get free information about:<br />
• health issues<br />
• support groups or services in the<br />
area<br />
• healthy living<br />
• help available for living with a<br />
long term condition.<br />
The patient information service<br />
also runs the ‘Your Health’ section<br />
of the Trust’s website at www.<br />
airedale-trust.nhs.uk/YourHealth<br />
which includes self care and<br />
wellbeing advice and support<br />
through the ‘Your Health’<br />
blog.<br />
Contact Helen Roberts, email:<br />
your.health@anhst.nhs.uk or tel:<br />
01535 294413.<br />
Helen Roberts at the relocated patient information service<br />
Pilot scheme<br />
allows frail elderly<br />
patients to go<br />
home sooner<br />
A multi-disciplinary team that<br />
assess frail elderly patients who<br />
have completed their acute medical<br />
treatment are piloting working<br />
Saturdays. The project started in<br />
January in a bid to get those with<br />
complex needs the necessary care to<br />
be safely discharged sooner.<br />
For the past year, the team – a<br />
senior nurse, a discharge case<br />
manager, two occupational<br />
therapists, a physiotherapist and<br />
two therapy assistants – has been<br />
focusing on wards 1, 2 and Airedale<br />
Hospital’s Emergency Department.<br />
They liaise closely with the Trust’s<br />
intermediate care hub, community<br />
services, voluntary services and social<br />
services to help sort out any therapy<br />
and social care problems that may<br />
be preventing these patients who<br />
have completed their acute medical<br />
treatment from going back home<br />
after a stay in hospital.<br />
Their aim is also to prevent<br />
patients from being readmitted<br />
to hospital because they cannot<br />
‘<br />
In the future it<br />
’<br />
would be great<br />
to include<br />
more staff and<br />
over seven<br />
days<br />
cope at home with activities of daily<br />
living including eating, drinking<br />
or incontinence. The team assess<br />
patients to see what extra support<br />
with social or health care they may<br />
benefit from and try to involve their<br />
family or carer in their discharge as<br />
much as possible.<br />
Teri Loftus, physiotherapist at<br />
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust who<br />
leads the service, said: “It’s definitely<br />
making a dfference to getting<br />
patients out of hospital more swiftly<br />
when doctors have completed their<br />
acute medical treatment, but most<br />
importantly safely, with support from<br />
appropriate community services.<br />
“In the future it would be great to<br />
extend the project further to include<br />
more staff and over seven days if we<br />
had extra funding.<br />
“At the moment we have to<br />
prioritise our patients to deal initially<br />
with those that are frail and elderly<br />
with complex needs and long term<br />
conditions, who have completed<br />
their acute medical treatment. We<br />
feel there are many more patients<br />
that could benefit from this service.”<br />
The team has recently visited a<br />
similar project set up in Leicester five<br />
years ago to examine its processes<br />
and use it as a benchmark for their<br />
service. They also took part in a<br />
conference in Sheffield which looked<br />
at assess to discharge, changes to how<br />
hospitals work with the involvement<br />
of more community services, wrapping<br />
care around the patients and assessing<br />
them in their own homes.<br />
For more information email:<br />
teri.loftus@anhst.nhs.uk<br />
Touch screens<br />
to be used<br />
to check in<br />
Patients will soon be able to use<br />
touch screens to check-in to<br />
their outpatients’ appointments<br />
at Airedale Hospital, Coronation<br />
Hospital, in Ilkley and Skipton<br />
Hospital.<br />
Four screens will soon be<br />
available in the main outpatients’<br />
area and additional touch<br />
screens will be installed for other<br />
departments around the hospital<br />
including the Richardson Clinic.<br />
The screen, which is linked to<br />
Systm One, will direct them<br />
to the appropriate clinic waiting<br />
area.<br />
Julia Spencer, patient services<br />
manager for outpatients at<br />
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust,<br />
said: “When all the clinics in<br />
outpatients are busy, people can<br />
get delayed because they are<br />
waiting at the reception desk to<br />
let us know they are here.<br />
“Patients will still be able to<br />
use the reception desk to check<br />
in for their appointments if they<br />
want to but we hope that once<br />
people become familiar with the<br />
new system, more will use selfcheck-in,<br />
giving our staff more<br />
time to spend with patients who<br />
need assistance.”<br />
Touch screen in action<br />
5
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