acute surgical admission units

Hi Baileyo, I work on an acute surgical admission unit in Liverpool Wow ya in for a busy time !! I love it, and it works, the only problem we have is Medical admissions using our beds !! specially now in the winter, The consultants Love it, because they don't have to traipse all round the hospital to see thier new patients the next morning One difficulty will be staffing and skill mixes, we found we needed more trained staff than other units, some mornings we can have the 6 consultants all doin their ward rounds at once !!! and having to keep patients after assessment because of bed shortages, but we work closely with the bed managers which helps. The paper work triples, and the mileage ya put in quadruples when transfering out to the wards and trips to theatre.. But believe me the job satisfaction beats everything... I wish you Good Luck in your unit, every hospital should have one, OBTW, get a good team with strong leadership and the teething troubles will soon grown to healthy molars ENJOY

Forgot to mention, keep a good rapport with A&E staff.. we had many arguments when we were first up and running, ie: sending patients up without SHO review, no ivi's, ng tubes, catheters set up, poor hand overs etc we eventually had monthly meetings together which ironed out any misunderstandings, hope this helps.........

Hi bailyo,
I work in a acute medical assessment and planning unit in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia. Our unit has been up and running foe about a year, and it is great.Yes we had some teething problems in regards to incomplete handovers from A&E staff, and consultants from A&E wanting to admit pts that did not fit the criteria for our unit, and outlies due to shortage of beds in hospital. Skillmix in staffing was not a issue due to good management. We have 14 beds in our unit. We are locating to a brand new hospital in Septemeber 2001 were 2 of these beds will be high dependency beds mainly telemetrey beds. I hope I have been of help to you, also in regards to A&E handover we have developed and are presently implementing a tick/flick sheet for both A&E and our unit to utilise. Good luck with your unit you will enjoy. I know this letter is a bit late in coming but I have only just logged on to site. Donna

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