INCREASING the capacity of the Acute Medical Unit will free up space in A&E, hospital bosses say.

Patients who come to AMU have either been sent by their GP or are transferred from A&E. Medical problems can include sepsis, pneumonia, general infections, chest pain, abnormal heart rhythms, strokes, heart attacks, headaches and blood clots.

Clinical director for medicine Stuart Henderson said the main factor limiting the unit was not doctors or nurses but space.

He said: “When I started at SDH eight years ago our physical assessment capacity may have been used up every three weeks, now it’s everyday and we have a problem.

By expanding, we can make ourselves fit for the present and the future - we will be able to bring people through from A&E as there’s a lot of people there who are neither an accident or an emergency and in so doing move the burden away from A&E.”

Over the winter, due to the high level of demand, hundreds of medical patients were looked after on different speciality wards and moved multiple times leaving doctors having to do elongated ward rounds in order to see all patients.

“The practice of medicine has changed over the past 30 years and the hospital infrastructure hasn’t, we’ve tried to adapt but we have reached the point where we can’t adapt anymore,” Dr Henderson says.

“Historically care has been delivered in an inpatient or outpatient setting, there’s now a lot of ground in the middle which goes for both medicine and surgery i.e. people who needed to be in hospital for four days can be done in one day. That’s because we’ve got better access to tests, better drugs and different types of doctors.

“The change we are planning over the summer is to allow Salisbury as a Trust to have the right resource in terms of space and staff to deliver that care to the best of our ability. There’s a buzz and excitement among staff, we think this is our only option.”

He added: “The advantage to medical patients is that their journey through AMU will be quicker, they will be treated and discharged on the same day thereby avoiding a hospital admission which is far better for us and them.

“By expanding our assessment beds into an area with more space, patients will no longer have to wait so long, there will be more space for relatives to stay with people they are worried about, and more privacy. The stroke unit on Farley ward is 30 years old, this will be moving to a better environment.”

Doctors and nurses at the hospital have been driving the redesign saying it is “absolutely necessary” for them to give the best care to patients.

“Over the winter the majority of staff felt they couldn’t always give the care people deserved,” Dr Henderson said.

“That has to change. With the redesign there will still be days when we are swamped and we haven’t got the resources we need but that’s got to be the minority of the time, not the majority.”

He added: “Overall our friends and family feedback is excellent, what’s driving this is professionals saying we are starting to get unhappy about this and that’s the first trigger. If we get to the point where all our patients are complaining we’ve missed the boat.”

Changes will 'rightsize' the hospital

FUNDING for the £3million new building and ward changes is coming from Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust budgets.

“It is a really challenging decision in the financial climate to sign off a significant capital investment like this,” Andy Hyett, the hospital’s chief operating officer said. 

“But as a board we believe this is the right decision for the future of Salisbury District Hospital and it will allow us to rightsize the hospital. 
“Although it’s spending money it actually means we can run a more efficient health service at the end of the day.”

He added: “We need to make these changes to the buildings so our teams can work as efficiently as possible, so the length of stay for patients is decreased and there is a rapid turnover of patients.
“Medicine changes all the time, our estate has to move with it.”

Big recruitment drive underway 

A BIG recruitment drive is underway at the hospital with jobs over the coming months for doctors, nurses and support staff as well as estate staff, administrators and porters. 

Chief operating officer Andy Hyett said: “The exciting thing is it’s going to give the opportunity for nurses and doctors to work in new areas that have been purposely designed.”

Keep an eye on the NHS Jobs website for upcoming vacancies or email work@salisbury.nhs.uk

Open days for nurses are taking place at Level 5, the Education Centre, SDH on July 10 and July 13, from 5.30pm to 8.30pm. Another open day for nurses is on July 22 from 10am to 2pm.