High care area

[XB9S]

I just wanted to pick your brains a bit. I have been asked to look into the feasibility of setting up a high care area within one of our wards.

DO any of you have this sort of thing, I don't mean HDU it's for patients who are not HDU sick but still need lots of care.

What would your thoughts be. I have my opinions but want to see what the general thoughts are before I voice them

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

staffing is an issue

are there already any level 1 areas in your trust ( and does your trust consider CCU acutes L1 or L2 ) ...

7 beds for L1 is a lot on one unit even with 2 RN + HCA ( +any students) 4 beds is a more realistic number of beds to start with...

we are currentlytrying to bring forward (into theold build) somethign which we are meant to be getting in out new build which is L1 beds on theassessment unit as we have a real gulf on our site between the Level0 beds and the HDUs - we occaisionally get told tha we are already running at enhanced staffinglevles compared to the rest ofthe wards ... but we are also taking the vast majority of medical acuteadmissions through the unit and a significant proprtion of general + vascular surgical acute admissions - normal figures is 50 + patients through 28 beds / 2 4 hours but with 3 and 4 day holds at times due to subspeciality bed pressures and thefact that we aren't allowed to outlie certain subspecialities without consultant consent ( due to chest pain patients being outlied i nthe pased and their MIs being missed anddue to some fatalities and unnecessary ITU admissions in asthmatics who were outlied)