Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2013 | Page 84

FASHION HEALTH & BEAUTY

four consultants. Robin Beal is the
consultant in emergency medicine and
the clinical lead for the emergency
department and medical assessment
unit. He said: “The changes in the
department have been orientated
around how the patients arrive and are
processed. The department has been
arranged to deal with the efficient flow
of patients.
“Patients who arrive by ambulance
come in via the ambulance door, and
a decision is then made whether that
patient needs quite acute care, or
whether the person is simply unwell
and needs to be seen relatively soon.
If extreme acute care is required the
patient goes into the resuscitation
room or ‘majors’ area.
“The department has a central
area where medical, clinical and
clerical staff work, and everything is
accessible and visible from that area,
which is arguably the biggest single
improvement. And we are the only
department in the country which is
as close to paperless as you can get. It
means staff sit in front of computers,
which sometimes gives patients the
wrong perception, but that is the
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only way to do it. Similarly we are
the only department nationally using
a computerised prescribing system,
which again reduces paper usage.”
Robin continued: “Putting the
shiny new department aside, the
processes and what you do with
patients is the important part, and
maybe it wasn’t quite right before.
We are still titivating and trying to
improve, but we have already made
improvements when it comes to

patient investigations. For example
blood tests can now be carried out
in the department, and we can do
X-rays in the resuscitation department.
We believe the way we operate is the
blueprint for the future nationwide.
“The relationship between Primary
Care and Emergency Medicine is
absolutely vital to us, and we need to
further enhance it. We already have a
model that other people think is great,
but we want to go that bit further.”
Overall, the message to someone
feeling ill is not to be frightened to
dial 111 or even 999 to seek help or
advice. But inevitably the service is
sometimes misused, and only recently
a ‘patient’ turned up demanding
treatment for a broken finger nail!
Robin added: “That is not on, because
it not only wastes the person’s time,
but also that of clinical staff who
could be dealing with other matters.
We want to make sure patients who
genuinely need help come in to be
treated, but we don’t want to be
swamped by things that don’t need to
be seen.”