The Future Hospital development site team at The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust are working to improve care for frail elderly patients by implementing an older person’s assessment unit.
Comprehensive geriatric assessments
At Pinderfields Hospital, the development site project team have set up the rapid elderly assessment care team (REACT). REACT provides a comprehensive geriatric assessment for elderly patients when they arrive at hospital and ensures that their medical needs are identified at the earliest opportunity. From there, patients remain at the centre of their care.
The team reflect on their achievements in the first 18 months of their collaborations with the FHP.
Successes
- Controlling admissions: 100% of patients accepted by REACT received a comprehensive geriatric assessment from the multidisciplinary team between April and June 2016.
- Discharge process: over 85% of patients accepted by REACT are discharged by the team, meaning that beds on the wards are available for those who are in most medical need of them.
Patient experience is valued as much as clinical effectiveness
Challenges
- Bed pressures: patients under the care of the REACT team are sometimes moved from the acute assessment unit to a base ward due to bed pressures, where the team cannot follow them, which has been shown to increase length of stay for those patients by an average of over 9 days.
- Rota gaps: due to staffing constraints, it has been difficult to consistently reach the target of the number of patient experience surveys conducted each week.