Hi Thelma

If you were advising someone in your situation would you not go and say talk to you manager.

You have 2 issues:

Walk ins

Walkins impacting on your work.

Firstly, the NHS does have a mandate to accept self-referrals which was intended for stressed individuals to get help without management referral. What does this mean for us at GOSh? We signpost them to the EAP provider for management of any immediate distress and they get a self referral form to let us know what they want and I triage it to see what needs to be done. Sometimes, I give advice over the phone, signpost them to their manager for a proper referral or to HR for a referral if they cannot talk to their manager.

If they attend the department the admin will ask re the degree of urgency and give them the self-referral form to leave behind and the ‘we will get back to you in 24 hours’ message.

If skin or needlestick they are seen as soon as someone is free. I have one nurse all day who does walkins and clinical admin and the 2 junior nurses alternate am and pm between clinics and the Walkins/Admin. So they will be doing PEQs, blood tests, telephone advice and see the people in the skin or needle-stick group who are allowed to wait to be seen.

No-one else gets an appointment without a referral form that has been seen and approved for an appointment.

Secondly, the ‘how you feel’ bit: collect data about how often walkins interrupt the nurses, talk to your manager about how you feel about the unplanned interruptions and its impact on your concentration focus, workload etc. If you can prove that the walkins are regular i.e. daily, then you have a case to ask to have some time set aside for them that you can use to see them or play catchup.

Planned appointments should not be kept waiting by queue jumpers and not managing it encourages it

Best wishes

Sue

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From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Thelma Jameson
Sent: 22 November 2013 06:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [OCC-HEALTH] Open door policy-OH

I agree with your assertions here. If someone has reaction they need to be seen at the OH dept. But my concern is those who turned for non-urgent complex issue that beed time and careful assessment and
Re trainee doctor with reaction to substance was rotating from another hospital and we have ko records. At the first attendance said manager has removed them from the undertaking duties with substance and felt was missing out on learning experience. Also was asking for prescription/reacommendation of creams from OH. They turned up few week later at OH with same problem request when this time i saw them and advice to attend on doctor to request referral to specialist to investigate what is causing the allergic problem and treatment

My problem though is we are paper-light and hold employees only records. Therefore one cannot document such cases and accountability and duty of care arose because they attend our OHD with a problem.
Secondly,like someobe said earlier on this thread,proper referral and time is need to ensure quality input from OH. However, there are those who turn up for non urgent and ill-defind issues at the door asking to see someone in OH for advice.
The secretaries then come to one of us or if on the phone direct them to us. Sometimes the manager for our department knock on our doors asking us to attend these enquirers and i find this distracting and fall behind my workload and appointments.
The problem is-non of the colleagues seems to do or say anything apart from grumbling behind the scene. As a ne comer at this department i do not feel it is right to conduct ourselves like this but concern my assertion will not be support by others.

Regards

Thelma

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