A&E waiting times could plummet at one of Manchester’s largest hospitals this week as a successful national initiative kicks into action there.
The ‘Perfect Week for Patients’ scheme begins at North Manchester General Hospital on July 8, after successful runs at The Royal Oldham and Fairfield General Hospitals last month when both achieved 100% under four-hour A&E waiting times for the first time since 2014, despite high patient attendances.
For one week, every ward in the hospital, the largest in the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, will have extra help to identify and overcome issues and problems in order to try to eradicate delays.
Dr Jimmy Stuart, Divisional Medical Director, said: “North Manchester General Hospital is one of the best performing A&E departments in Greater Manchester in terms of waiting times for the four-hour emergency access standard.
“The Perfect Week for Patients is another tool to help us improve and deliver an even better and more efficient and quality-driven service for our patients.”
Perfect Weeks at other hospitals have been shown to improve performance, waiting times, discharge of patients and patients’ overall experience.
“Having beds available at the start of the day is a terrific boon,” said Dr Stuart.
“To use a football analogy, it’s like starting the game at 0-0, instead of being 2-0 down before we even kick off.”
The initiative focuses on every step of a patient’s experience, from local GP surgeries and the ambulance service, A&E and hospital treatment, through to discharge and community care.
Hugh Mullen, the Trust’s Director of Operations, added: “The response from staff to our previous Perfect Weeks has been tremendous and we have seen shorter waits in A&E and improved patient flow across our hospitals.
“We fully expect to see the same at North Manchester and with the help of our partners in primary, community and social care, many of whom will be joining us on the wards to see the issues first hand.
“The object is to find solutions to our shared problems that we can apply throughout the year for the benefit of our patients and their families.”
Image courtesy of David Dixon, via Geograph, with thanks.
