News
Emergency consultants claim workload is unsustainable Royal colleges and unions call for reconfiguration of services to ensure they are safe and sustainable
Specialist unit offers opportunities for advanced practitioners PLANS TO replace an emergency department with a nurse-led emergency unit will work only if it is adequately staffed with trained advanced specialist nurses, RCN Wales has warned. Health minister Mark Drakeford has approved Hywel Dda Health Board’s plans to replace emergency care services at Prince Philip Hospital, Llanelli, with an emergency nurse practitioner service supported by GPs. RCN Wales associate director Peter Meredith-Smith said the model, one of a number of proposals for service change published by the board in January, will need to be resourced fully. EMERGENCY NURSE
The situation is also reducing the attractiveness of the specialty to new trainees. The findings have led to calls from nursing and medical royal colleges, and unions, for the reconfiguration of emergency services to make them ‘safe and sustainable’. Frustration Stretched to the Limit recommends that NHS England medical director Sir Bruce Keogh’s forthcoming review of the sector should ‘address and improve urgent and emergency care system design to allow safe and effective delivery of care’. Ms Youd said that she understands why consultants feel frustrated and overwhelmed, because nurses are in the same situation. She said: ‘The ED landscape has changed and, as pressures on departments increase, so do the mental and physical demands
Alamy
By Sophie Blakemore THE RCN Emergency Care Association (ECA) has supported claims by medical consultants that emergency department (ED) workloads in the UK are unsustainable. Association chair Janet Youd said that nurses, like doctors, are being forced to work long hours to keep up with demand and maintain standards. The College of Emergency Medicine (CEM) has conducted a survey of 1,077 emergency medicine consultants, representing 70 per cent of the consultant doctors who work in emergency care. The survey, Stretched to the Limit, reveals that 94 per cent of respondents work more than their contracted hours regularly. More than 60 per cent of respondents said their workload is unsustainable, and some said they are leaving the UK to seek more balanced lifestyles elsewhere.
on doctors and nurses, who are working back-to-back shifts with no breaks. ‘There is also a nursing shortage and we are struggling to recruit nurses into EDs. We have no idea exactly how many emergency nurses there are in the UK because of a lack of strict criteria for training and assessment, which makes workforce planning even harder.’ Ms Youd added that an evaluation of a baseline emergency staffing tool, which the ECA and Faculty of Emergency Nursing developed to help EDs identify gaps in nursing workload and staffing levels, is due to be presented at the association’s annual conference later this month. Other recommendations for emergency care set out in the CEM report include: ■■ Immediate action by executive trust boards and commissioners to ensure better job planning for consultants and other senior decision makers in emergency medicine. ■■ An urgent review by the British Medical Association and NHS Employers to consider the safety and sustainability of working practices among senior medical decision makers, especially those who work out-of-hours, to ensure they receive adequate rest and recuperation.
Along came a spider THE BRITISH Red Cross has warned that the UK is under attack from ‘false widow’ spiders. Originating in the Canary Islands and Madeira, and previously found mainly in southern England, Steatoda nobilis has begun to spread across the country, which has meant more sightings and more people reporting that they have been bitten. People are rarely bitten by the spider but, according to the Natural History Museum, its bites can be ‘far more severe than a bee or wasp sting’. People who have been bitten by false widow spiders report a local burning sensation followed by radiating pain. ■■ Further details are available at tinyurl.com/y8e5yuq November 2013 | Volume 21 | Number 7
Emergency Nurse 2013.21:7-7. Downloaded from journals.rcni.com by National University of Singapore on 11/28/15. For personal use only.
7
Emergency consultants claim workload is unsustainable Royal colleges and unions call for reconfiguration of services to ensure they are safe and sustainable
Specialist unit offers opportunities for advanced practitioners PLANS TO replace an emergency department with a nurse-led emergency unit will work only if it is adequately staffed with trained advanced specialist nurses, RCN Wales has warned. Health minister Mark Drakeford has approved Hywel Dda Health Board’s plans to replace emergency care services at Prince Philip Hospital, Llanelli, with an emergency nurse practitioner service supported by GPs. RCN Wales associate director Peter Meredith-Smith said the model, one of a number of proposals for service change published by the board in January, will need to be resourced fully. EMERGENCY NURSE
The situation is also reducing the attractiveness of the specialty to new trainees. The findings have led to calls from nursing and medical royal colleges, and unions, for the reconfiguration of emergency services to make them ‘safe and sustainable’. Frustration Stretched to the Limit recommends that NHS England medical director Sir Bruce Keogh’s forthcoming review of the sector should ‘address and improve urgent and emergency care system design to allow safe and effective delivery of care’. Ms Youd said that she understands why consultants feel frustrated and overwhelmed, because nurses are in the same situation. She said: ‘The ED landscape has changed and, as pressures on departments increase, so do the mental and physical demands
Alamy
By Sophie Blakemore THE RCN Emergency Care Association (ECA) has supported claims by medical consultants that emergency department (ED) workloads in the UK are unsustainable. Association chair Janet Youd said that nurses, like doctors, are being forced to work long hours to keep up with demand and maintain standards. The College of Emergency Medicine (CEM) has conducted a survey of 1,077 emergency medicine consultants, representing 70 per cent of the consultant doctors who work in emergency care. The survey, Stretched to the Limit, reveals that 94 per cent of respondents work more than their contracted hours regularly. More than 60 per cent of respondents said their workload is unsustainable, and some said they are leaving the UK to seek more balanced lifestyles elsewhere.
on doctors and nurses, who are working back-to-back shifts with no breaks. ‘There is also a nursing shortage and we are struggling to recruit nurses into EDs. We have no idea exactly how many emergency nurses there are in the UK because of a lack of strict criteria for training and assessment, which makes workforce planning even harder.’ Ms Youd added that an evaluation of a baseline emergency staffing tool, which the ECA and Faculty of Emergency Nursing developed to help EDs identify gaps in nursing workload and staffing levels, is due to be presented at the association’s annual conference later this month. Other recommendations for emergency care set out in the CEM report include: ■■ Immediate action by executive trust boards and commissioners to ensure better job planning for consultants and other senior decision makers in emergency medicine. ■■ An urgent review by the British Medical Association and NHS Employers to consider the safety and sustainability of working practices among senior medical decision makers, especially those who work out-of-hours, to ensure they receive adequate rest and recuperation.
Along came a spider THE BRITISH Red Cross has warned that the UK is under attack from ‘false widow’ spiders. Originating in the Canary Islands and Madeira, and previously found mainly in southern England, Steatoda nobilis has begun to spread across the country, which has meant more sightings and more people reporting that they have been bitten. People are rarely bitten by the spider but, according to the Natural History Museum, its bites can be ‘far more severe than a bee or wasp sting’. People who have been bitten by false widow spiders report a local burning sensation followed by radiating pain. ■■ Further details are available at tinyurl.com/y8e5yuq November 2013 | Volume 21 | Number 7
Emergency Nurse 2013.21:7-7. Downloaded from journals.rcni.com by National University of Singapore on 11/28/15. For personal use only.
7
