Emergency nurse : the journal of the RCN Accident and Emergency Nursing Association
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Guidelines were developed at the Whittington Hospital paediatric emergency department (ED) for a nurse-led discharge pathway, initially for children presenting to the department having accidentally ingested a substance that was potentially toxic. Following the new pathway led to cuts in average time in hospital, time to treatment, and costs. Patients' experience of the emergency service was reported to be improved.
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The benefits of family-witnessed resuscitation (FWR) have been described in research, yet many healthcare professionals express reservations about the practice. This article considers the attitudes of staff, relatives and patients towards FWR, and the reasons why the practice is not implemented routinely in emergency departments. It also describes elements of best practice in FWR, including the development of guidelines, provision of staff training programmes and support for families.
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The National Emergency Medicine Programme Strategy is a comprehensive plan to improve and develop emergency care in Ireland. It recommends significant changes in how emergency care is organised and delivered so that patients can be confident that they will receive high quality, safe and timely care. Emergency nurses were involved in developing aspects of the strategy document and will play a crucial role in its implementation to ensure that patient outcomes and satisfaction with emergency care services in Ireland are improved.
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Until recently, adult safeguarding policies at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust did not cover domestic abuse, except in maternity services. While trying to remedy this deficit, the trust discovered several problems in information sharing and data protection, which led to consideration of how safeguarding alerts are handled and processed on patient arrival. This article explains how the trust solved these problems by setting up a safeguarding log to alert staff to at-risk patients.