Emergency care leadership programme
Your SHA lead nurse has until 22 September to submit nominations for the leadership programme. If you work in an emergency care setting and want to lead on putting the patient at the heart of reform and integrating emergency services, make sure your line manager or director of nursing gives your name to the SHA lead nurse as soon as possible.
Towards a new model of support - SHA 'top tips' published
A set of 'top tips' designed to help strategic health authorities (SHA) learn from the success of others in delivering improved emergency care has been developed.
As other articles in this bulletin make clear, frontline staff can be proud of improvements they have made so far and are continuing to make in delivering emergency care.
Most trusts have now been through the challenge of making fundamental changes to the way in which they work and are able to recognise and address most threats to the four-hour standard.
It is recognised that there are some remaining areas which would benefit from national attention and the central Department of Health emergency care team is working with frontline staff to target these. However, as the 98 per cent four-hour standard becomes further entrenched in the day-to-day expectations of A&E patients, the role of central support becomes less necessary in sustaining this level of performance.
Over the coming months, it is expected that support will gradually shift from the centre to SHAs. To help ensure this, the central team has for some months now been working closely with SHA representatives to ensure shared learning from the improvement programme is not lost.
The beginning of this shift of support has been marked with the launch of the SHA 'top tips' - a consolidation of the common factors of high performing trusts, developed by, and for SHA chief executives. These are seen as the top key factors for really improving the likelihood of sustaining performance day in and day out.
Transition to this future support model will be gradual and, for the immediate future, the central team remains available to provide support to trusts, while working closely with SHA colleagues to ensure the momentum is not lost.
'Top tips' available at:
