Raigmore Hospital seeking more patient flow co-ordinators to ensure the right beds are available for all
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RAIGMORE Hospital in Inverness is beefing up the team that ensures the effective utilisation of beds.
Two more people who can cope in a crisis are being sought to join five others in the challenging role of patient flow co-ordinators.
This work is more vital than ever at present with the NHS seeing a surge in Covid and flu cases, and the need to ensure that ambulance crews can deliver patients into the hospital and get back out as fast as possible.
They will be expected to work closely with the Scottish Ambulance Service to ensure “timely and appropriate transfers”, and through joint working with other hospitals, the new staff will promote and support the most appropriate use of Raigmore Hospital beds and services.
An NHS Highland spokeswoman said: “The team plays a vital role in maintaining patient safety throughout the hospital as well as ensuring that every patient received their care in the most appropriate place.
“The role is varied and fast-paced and covers all wards and specialities.
“We aim to be very family friendly and are flexible in our approach to working hours.”
The successful applicants will support safe and effective patient flow across the hospital by maintaining processes that safely expedite patient placement and discharge.
They will be responsible for providing reliable and consistent daily information on the hospital bed state to the patient flow manager and senior operational management team.
And they must work with these key people to solve any “capacity and demand crisis situations” as well as co-ordinating information to the Raigmore Quality and Patient Safety Huddle and all bed handover meetings.
They must be flexible with regards to daily working hours, in order to meet the requirements of the service seven days a week and to cover annual leave.
Based in the Acute Medical Assessment Unit, they will be responsible for co-ordinating patient flow across the medical division escalating to the flow manager when capacity issues arise, says the job description, adding: “This enables the delivery of quality care and maximises bed capacity whilst reducing risk to a minimum.”
It adds: “The postholder must also have the ability to problem solve in a creative and dynamic manner as the caseload and pressure is unpredictable, and to promote safe and effective patient flow ensuring that the patient is in the most appropriate bed for their clinical condition.”
Throughout the day they will liase with Accident and Emergency to ensure that any potential admissions are accounted for in terms of bed availability to ensure no delays in transfer to the wards, and “works to positively contribute to ensuring that the Accident and Emergency four-hour waiting time targets are met and maintained. And when the bed capacity indicates Amber Plus/Red Alert, work to ensure rapid transfer of appropriate patients to community hospitals to free up beds within the appropriate speciality in Raigmore.
If necessary they will request that medical staff identify suitable patients who can be decanted to other wards to create emergency beds.
