News

Drive to meet 'gold standard' A&E target works in short-term

A drive to reduce delays at Antrim Area hospital's A&E worked over a 24-hour period
A drive to reduce delays at Antrim Area hospital's A&E worked over a 24-hour period A drive to reduce delays at Antrim Area hospital's A&E worked over a 24-hour period

A HEALTH trust with a record number of A&E waiting time breaches was able to meet the four-hour waiting time target for 24 hours during a troubleshooting project.

The successful outcome at the troubled Northern health trust has led managers to apply for more funding to sustain improvements.

Health chiefs took part in a drive to ensure the government target of 95 per cent of all casualty patients being treated, discharged or admitted to a hospital bed within four hours.

The 'gold standard' measure was introduced more than a decade ago across the north's acute hospitals but has rarely been met.

Known as the '100 per cent challenge', health trust staff based at Antrim Area hospital worked with a team of science academics from Manchester over 24 hours on January 18 through to the next day, one of the busiest periods in the unit with 245 people attending.

The trust, which has been plagued by A&E delays for the past five years, had more than 500 patients stuck on trolleys for more than 12 hours in January - one of the worst cases in the entire NHS.

Wendy Magowan, divisional director for emergency medicine at the trust, explained they didn't have any extra medical or nursing trust staff in the A&E but had 10 extra managers to co-ordinate discharges and link-ups, including community care packages, mental health and childcare services.

"We deliberately didn't throw the kitchen sink at it in terms of medical staff as we knew it would a false situation that we couldn't repeat," she said.

"It was as if we were running a major incident without the major incident taking place. We had just come through an awful two weeks...but staff felt invigorated by the new approach."

It emerged that 94 per cent of patients had been seen or discharged within four hours. This grew to 99 per cent in the following hours.

Ms Magowan said they had tried to maintain the ethos of what they had learned throughout the exercise and that major improvements had been made.

But she conceded it was difficult to sustain such a standard.

"When you know that something can be done, it is very difficult to unknow that," she said

"We have completely changed the way we co-ordinate the hospital and taken on a site manger who is here here seven days a week."

She confirmed she had submitted a proposal to the Health and Social Care Board for additional funding for more support services.

A&E 12-HOUR BREACHES January 2016

Belfast Trust: 128

Northern Trust: 124

South Eastern Trust: 212

Southern: 48

Western: 32

A&E 12-HOUR BREACHES January 2017

Belfast Trust: 461

NorthernTrust: 501

South Eastern Trust: 393

Southern Trust: 285

Western Trust: 175