Same Day Emergency Care
Our Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) services include:
- Medical Same Day Emergency Care
- Same Day Acute Frailty
These services allow suitable patients to receive timely assessment, investigations and treatment without needing to be admitted to an inpatient hospital bed. However, if patients are required to stay overnight in hospital for further assessment and care, this is provided in our acute assessment wards: the Acute Medical Unit or the Acute Frailty Unit.
Patients can only be referred for Same Day Emergency Care by a community Health Care Profesisonal such as a GP or Advanced Care Practitioner, a Clinical Assessment Service such as NHS111, or streamed by the Emergency Department. Most referrals are immediate but some patients may be given a next day appointment depending on urgency of need.
On arrival, a senior clinician will commence assessment involving other professions and referring for investigations where indicated. Patients have the same access to our clinicians, diagnostics and services as our inpatients. There are a number of conditions which can now be successfully treated safely without an unnecessary overnight stay in hospital - patients can return home after their first visit but may be asked to return for follow-up treatments or diagnostics.
Acute Medical Unit
The Acute Medical Unit (AMU) is a 49 bedded unit that manages acutely unwell medical patients who cannot otherwise be managed through Same Day Emergency Care.
These patients require emergency admission to a hospital bed for a period of assessment and stabilisation of 24-48 hours, prior to discharge from hospital or transfer to the most appropriate ward for ongoing hospital care.
Whilst in AMU, patients will be seen by the multi-disciplinary team which includes Acute Physicians, Junior Doctors, Physician Associates, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, and Pharmacists, in addition to Speciality teams where appropriate, i.e. Cardiology, Respiratory, Diabetes, Gastroenterology, Oncology and Mental Health.
If a speciality bed is required, then a stay of longer than 48hrs may be required.
Acute Frailty Unit
The Acute Frailty Unit (AFU) is a unit with two clearly defined assessment areas ‘under the same roof’:
- Same Day Acute Frailty
- Inpatient Acute Frailty
AFU operates as described above for SDEC and AMU, with the main difference being the inclusion criteria:
- Aged ≥ 65 years old
- Clinical Frailty Score ≥ 5
AFU has a specialist acute frailty multi-disciplinary workforce including Coordinators, Consultant Geriatricians, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists and Pharmacists. AFU manages its own referrals from the community, a Frailty Intervention Team in-reaches to other areas such as ED and AMU. AFU also manages its own admissions.
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