Investing in A&E
27 May 2014 04:22 PM
£30 million eases
pressures.
Funding of
£30 million targeted towards improving unscheduled care performance has
seen significant improvements to the time patients wait in Accident and
Emergency departments.
The news comes at
the end of the first year of the Scottish Government’s Unscheduled Care
Action Plan, which has seen new initiatives and additional staff help ease
pressure on Scotland’s A&Es.
Like A&E
departments right across the UK, Scotland’s NHS is facing the challenge
of treating more people with more complex health issue. To improve the position
in Scotland, the Scottish Government launched its £50 million Unscheduled
Care Action Plan in February 2013.
With the first
year of the plan now complete, the Scottish Government has been able to assess
progress and investment so far.
This update shows
that between the Scottish Government and health boards, some £30 million
has already been pumped into improving unscheduled care.
Some of the
initiatives brought about in the first year alone include:
- creation
of a dedicated unit to prevent frail elderly patients going into hospital
unnecessarily in NHS Forth Valley
- introduction of a new discharge hub is reducing delays
for patients waiting in hospital to go home in NHS Ayrshire and
Arran
- recruitment of 24/7 flow coordinators to improve how
patients move through the healthcare system and cut out unnecessary delays in
NHS Fife.
These are in
addition to the recruitment of additional staff, including 18 A&E
consultants and the roll out of digital whiteboards to improve the flow of
patients throughout hospitals right across Scotland.
With fresh A&E
statistics due out this week, the Action Plan has already slashed the number of
long waits in emergency departments. Since the action plan was introduced,
there has been an 87 per cent reduction in patients waiting over 12
hours.
In addition, the
number of people attending A&E who were seen and treated within four hours
was 93.5 per cent for December 2013, which has increased from 90.3 per cent in
December 2012.
Health Secretary
Alex Neil said:
“Our health
service staff provide a remarkable service, day in day out, to ensure that
patients who have the most imminent need get access to the fastest possible
treatment.
“That is why
I am so pleased to see that our vital unscheduled care services both in and out
with hospitals have been supported by an additional £10 million in
central funding and over £20 million from local investment, in the first
year of our unscheduled care action.
“To see the
range of improvements that has already come out of this investment is
substantial and we must now build on this initial progress over the next two
years.
“Each of
these initiatives show the best of our NHS where it is supported to deliver new
and creative ways to deliver better and faster care for the people of
Scotland.
“Of course
we all want performance to continue improving. We know that there is still work
to be done to build in long term sustainability of our emergency care. We will
continue to work closely both with both boards and partners like the Royal
Colleges.”
Notes To
Editors
Scottish
Government provided £10m unscheduled care funding in the first year and
NHS Boards provided over £20m – a total of £30m from the
£50m investment in year one.
Substantial
investment was made in the first year of the three year programme in
recognition that Boards would be required to commit substantial resources in
the first year in order to maximize the potential to achieve and sustain
improved performance over the course of the programme.