Organisation of medical work in the hospital service in Scotland : first report of the Joint Working Party / [Chairman: J.H.F. Brotherston].

Great Britain. Joint Working Party on the Organisation of Medical Work in the Hospital Service in Scotland.

Date:: 1967

Credit: Organisation of medical work in the hospital service in Scotland : first report of the Joint Working Party / [Chairman: J.H.F. Brotherston]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$and for investigation and treatment, including psychiatric and geriatric assess- ment. They represent the majority of beds which are in use in non-psychiatric meena are hospitals to-day and will continue in future to form the greater part of the hospital accommodation. 150. The design of modern acute hospital wards incorporates an intensive nursing _ care area. In acute wards a proportion of patients make heavy demands on the nursing services for at least part of their stay in hospital and many require much attention by day and by night. This can be given more efficiently if these patients are grouped together in a specially planned area rather than scattered in ones and twos over a very large ward floor. This area is designed to meet a nursing need and it is functionally distinct from the intensive therapy area to which we refer in the following paragraph. The provision required for an : intensive nursing care unit should be about one in five acute beds. Further = experience of the operation of intensive nursing care areas will be gained Z when the, Falkirk ward unit,has been studied. We support the policy that an intensive nursing care area will form part of the design of all new _acut wards and we consider it desirable that such areas should be introduced_as een cS AAPL TS soon as practicable into acute wards of existing general hospitals. 4, illo 4 phate. sujh ad res a , oe n why a- Seetr oP 4 ve pm Sener where Ate Aaa) _/Autensive Therapy Beds“ eewrewivnt {nutcg a redeid shed] merle 10-$2 bedm 4 os 3 ; : : a Fig he “151. These include the beds in post-anaesthetic recovery areas associated” “/ es with the operating theatres; the beds in resuscitation areas in the accident and emergency departments which are used for the resuscitation of seriously ill patients immediately they are brought to the hospital suffering from traumatic or non-traumatic conditions; and the beds in intensive therapy units themselves. Intensive therapy units are now being established is some of the existing major _ hospitals and are being planned for all new major acute hospitals. The criterion for admission to such a unit is the total dependence of the patient on medica and nursing staff, that is, the patient is critically ill, requires constant medical and nursing attention and the use of highly specialised equipment. The number of beds required in an intensive therapy unit is estimated at 1 to 2 per cent_of sig! « the total number of acute beds in the hospital. We support the policy that the o intensive therapy areas described should be included in all major general Beret dere lorie ee era ee ee ee eee sot tala wat — fiber’ pests dor.) Short-Stay Beds OVERNIGHT AND OBSERVATION BEDS 152. These are beds set aside for use by patients with a variety of conditions requiring brief observation, or time to recover from minor surgical procedures requiring general anaesthesia, or minor injuries. They can be used for emergency or elective admissions. Generally these beds require the same kind of staff and nursing facilities as acute beds in a specialist unit, and they must be con- tinuously available during seven days each week. Clearly, however, use of these beds will tend to contract_at_week-ends when the patient load falls. There is no reason why some of the beds in an acute general ward should not be used in this way, but the rapid turnover of patients in this type of accom- modation may make a separate short-stay unit desirable. In view of the rela- tively limited experience available, an investigation into the most effective means of using this kind of accommodation would probably produce valuable$