This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Nurses leaving A&E units to treat patients in ambulances
Nurses have been leaving their busy A&E units in order to treat patients stuck in the back of ambulances outside in the worst NHS winter crisis since the 1990s.
The practice is being used by nurses to ensure that patients’ health is not suffering in the face of the NHS winter crisis.
One nurse in the south-east of England said that she did this during her shift on New Year’s Day because the chaos in the unit meant some patients were forced to wait up to six hours inside ambulances outside the hospital.
Staff at a separate hospital in Dorset have also told how paramedics have been triaging patients in the hospital’s A&E units so that they can offhand their patients more quickly and answer other 999 calls earlier.
Nurses have described how some patients have had to spend 15 hours in A&E while they wait for a bed and resuscitation units have also run out of space.
Janet Davies, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: “It’s shocking news that some nursing staff are having to treat patients in the backs of ambulances.
“If paramedics have made a decision that a patient needs to be treated in hospital, then that is where they should be, not stuck outside in a vehicle.
“It also stops the ambulance getting to its next call, thereby creating yet more delays.
“This is yet another symptom of an NHS operating under severe pressure. There are fault-lines running through the entire system of getting patients into and out of hospital.”
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