It seems this man was on the ward for the best part of a couple of
days...sounds far more like inexperienced junior medical staff not
adequately watched by their seniors, and failing or being unable to
recognise a sickie when they see one. Think back to those dark days of SHO
ward posts - haven't we all seen something like this in our respective
careers?
An unmentioned (and often unmentionable) area is the responsibility of
nursing staff. It seems likely this man would have had significant
HR/BP/RR/UOP/Temp abnormalities - why were these not brought to senior
medical attention if the juniors were not responding?
Sorry - a sore point; I once got shredded on a PICU ward round for failing
to reassess a patient who had had no urinary output for 9 hours...I had
been busy with another sickie, and the nurse looking after said pt didn't
bother to tell me.
Which reminds me - any one read the Jed Mercurio book 'Bodies'?
Fiona.
>--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> Not so fast, Steve. It's common knowledge that
>> Kettering started the "see and treat" initiative,
>> but it's also well known that they practise this
>> during office hours only. They do not have
>> consultant presence in the evenings and in my view
>> that's leaving your department wide open for
>> precisely the sort of disaster that Danny has
>> highlighted.
>
>Not so fast yourself! I'm not even sure that this chap
>was seen by the A&E team. He was seen at a GP drop in
>centre at 1:00am and then it says didn't see a doctor
>until 7:00am. It doesn't say it was a cas officer. I
>suspect he was a GP referral to the medics and that
>medical admissions are seen in A&E as they are in a
>number of hospitals. It doesn't say what time he
>arrived at the hospital either. This sort of scenario
>has happened in our hospital where medical admissions
>were not seen until hours after admission - on the
>medical admissions unit fortunately not A&E, to the
>detriment of the patient. I supect it has nothing at
>all to do with see & treat and more to do with
>inadequate input into emergency medical admissions. A
>problem which is all too common!
>
>Cheers Fred.
>
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>
>
>
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