News
Nursing career framework will help to stem crisis RCN Northern Ireland welcomes plan for professional standards and additional staffing at Belfast hospital
Listening to front line staff RCN Northern Ireland director Janice Smyth said: ‘We welcome the fact that the minister has made a statement setting out measures that will assist in addressing the issues in the emergency department at the Royal Victoria Hospital in the short term. The minister has engaged with, and is listening to, front line nurses. The RCN is relieved that the announcement confirms that an additional 40 nurses are to be employed to address gaps in the nursing team, an issue that has consistently been raised by the RCN. EMERGENCY NURSE
‘We agree that much work still needs to be done, not least around identifying the wider problems within the health and social care system that are manifesting themselves in emergency departments.’ However, RCN Northern Ireland deputy director Garrett Martin added: ‘These staff can’t just walk onto the departments and wards and function to the level required. It takes time to train and orientate staff to an area where you need specialists.’ Final report due Action at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust comes in response to the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) inspection that Mr Poots had commissioned in January. A final report by the RQIA is due to be published this month. The state of flux at the trust has been compounded by the announcement last month by chief executive Colm Donaghy
Minutes can save days SHAVING EVEN a minute off the average time between the onset of stroke and initial treatment may add to the number of ‘healthy’ days people have afterwards, a study suggests. Researchers found that patients gained about two days of healthy life for every minute spared between the onset of their stroke and when they first receive treatment. ‘Every 15 minutes you wait, you lose a month of life,’ said the study’s lead author, Atte Meretoja, from the Melbourne Brain Centre, Victoria, Australia. It is well known that stroke should be treated early, but the new study helps highlight how significant even small delays can be, researchers said. ■■ Further details are available at bit.ly/1hC9IPZ
Science Photo Library
By Gill McNeill CHIEF NURSING officer (CNO) Charlotte McArdle has ordered the development of an emergency nursing career framework to help resolve the crisis in urgent care in Northern Ireland. The move is among the measures put in place after an RCN emergency care summit in Belfast in February highlighted the level of nurses’ concerns to the CNO and other healthcare policy makers. The framework, setting out professional standards for emergency nurses, is to be drawn up by the RCN Northern Ireland Emergency Care Network and the Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council for Nursing and Midwifery. Health minister Edwin Poots last month also announced the deployment of an additional 40 nurses in the emergency department at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital, where a major incident had been declared earlier this year. Fifteen are to be work in the emergency department and 25 in the acute medical unit. An electronic patient tracking system is to be introduced and a new directorate of unscheduled care will be established to modernise urgent care services in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.
that he is leaving to become chief executive of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Commenting on the development of the emergency nursing framework, Mr Poots added that the Baseline Emergency Staffing Tool (BEST), the workforce planning tool developed by the RCN Emergency Care Association and the Faculty of Emergency Nursing ‘is being evaluated as part of the delivery care programme’. RCN Northern Ireland board member and emergency nurse practitioner at Ulster Hospital, Dundonald, Roisin Devlin said: ‘The long and short of it is that, as a profession, standardisation and ongoing education in emergency medicine is essential to improve the current situation, but also importantly, as a career pathway for emergency department staff.’ Ulster Hospital is among the four sites visited by CNO Ms McArdle and Northern Ireland chief medical officer Michael McBride following the RCN summit. The others are the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Craigavon Area Hospital, County Armagh, and Antrim Area Hospital. Policy makers and health and social care leaders are expected to join front line and senior colleagues from across the UK at a College of Emergency Medicine summit to be held in Northern Ireland on April 9. See opinion, page 9
Computed tomography showing stroke damage
April 2014 | Volume 22 | Number 1
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Nursing career framework will help to stem crisis RCN Northern Ireland welcomes plan for professional standards and additional staffing at Belfast hospital
Listening to front line staff RCN Northern Ireland director Janice Smyth said: ‘We welcome the fact that the minister has made a statement setting out measures that will assist in addressing the issues in the emergency department at the Royal Victoria Hospital in the short term. The minister has engaged with, and is listening to, front line nurses. The RCN is relieved that the announcement confirms that an additional 40 nurses are to be employed to address gaps in the nursing team, an issue that has consistently been raised by the RCN. EMERGENCY NURSE
‘We agree that much work still needs to be done, not least around identifying the wider problems within the health and social care system that are manifesting themselves in emergency departments.’ However, RCN Northern Ireland deputy director Garrett Martin added: ‘These staff can’t just walk onto the departments and wards and function to the level required. It takes time to train and orientate staff to an area where you need specialists.’ Final report due Action at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust comes in response to the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) inspection that Mr Poots had commissioned in January. A final report by the RQIA is due to be published this month. The state of flux at the trust has been compounded by the announcement last month by chief executive Colm Donaghy
Minutes can save days SHAVING EVEN a minute off the average time between the onset of stroke and initial treatment may add to the number of ‘healthy’ days people have afterwards, a study suggests. Researchers found that patients gained about two days of healthy life for every minute spared between the onset of their stroke and when they first receive treatment. ‘Every 15 minutes you wait, you lose a month of life,’ said the study’s lead author, Atte Meretoja, from the Melbourne Brain Centre, Victoria, Australia. It is well known that stroke should be treated early, but the new study helps highlight how significant even small delays can be, researchers said. ■■ Further details are available at bit.ly/1hC9IPZ
Science Photo Library
By Gill McNeill CHIEF NURSING officer (CNO) Charlotte McArdle has ordered the development of an emergency nursing career framework to help resolve the crisis in urgent care in Northern Ireland. The move is among the measures put in place after an RCN emergency care summit in Belfast in February highlighted the level of nurses’ concerns to the CNO and other healthcare policy makers. The framework, setting out professional standards for emergency nurses, is to be drawn up by the RCN Northern Ireland Emergency Care Network and the Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council for Nursing and Midwifery. Health minister Edwin Poots last month also announced the deployment of an additional 40 nurses in the emergency department at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital, where a major incident had been declared earlier this year. Fifteen are to be work in the emergency department and 25 in the acute medical unit. An electronic patient tracking system is to be introduced and a new directorate of unscheduled care will be established to modernise urgent care services in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.
that he is leaving to become chief executive of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Commenting on the development of the emergency nursing framework, Mr Poots added that the Baseline Emergency Staffing Tool (BEST), the workforce planning tool developed by the RCN Emergency Care Association and the Faculty of Emergency Nursing ‘is being evaluated as part of the delivery care programme’. RCN Northern Ireland board member and emergency nurse practitioner at Ulster Hospital, Dundonald, Roisin Devlin said: ‘The long and short of it is that, as a profession, standardisation and ongoing education in emergency medicine is essential to improve the current situation, but also importantly, as a career pathway for emergency department staff.’ Ulster Hospital is among the four sites visited by CNO Ms McArdle and Northern Ireland chief medical officer Michael McBride following the RCN summit. The others are the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Craigavon Area Hospital, County Armagh, and Antrim Area Hospital. Policy makers and health and social care leaders are expected to join front line and senior colleagues from across the UK at a College of Emergency Medicine summit to be held in Northern Ireland on April 9. See opinion, page 9
Computed tomography showing stroke damage
April 2014 | Volume 22 | Number 1
Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Dec 09, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
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