ED BusyBlog
Cast your minds back to February 2020, just 6 weeks ago. Emergency Departments throughout the country were experiencing their worst waiting times on record. Treating patients in the corridor was normal, there were even designated corridor nurses. Staff shortages, not enough beds in the hospital, no social care places to discharge patients- our EDs were […]
It’s Ok not to be Ok… but its Ok to be Ok too…
Recently I had a conversation with one of our relatively new-to-ED nurses. We’d had a pretty awful shift with a tragic outcome and that night she text me saying ‘Is it normal to feel upset even when I know I’ve done everything right? It feels like I should be fine but I’m not. I keep […]
Transgender Sim A&E 2019
Competency Framework: GNP3 – Communication, GNP 5.2.3, GNP 7.1.3, GNP 7.1.7, GNP 8.2.2, GNP 8.2.3, CCT 6.1.3. Written by Sarah Perkins, foreword by Siobhan Cockram, Staff Nurse, A&E, Royal London Hospital and LGBTQ+ co-site lead RLMEH and Prescott Street. Sarah Perkin is one of our fantastic Registrars who at the time (of this SIM) was […]
Crossing the line
Competency Framework: CD2.7 Central Venous Catheter (CVC): insertion & care in A&E Hello! Welcome to A&E in the depths of winter. You’ve become well acquainted with the art of corridor care and doorway triage, and now it’s time to see critical care overflow from the ICU! You take handover in a busy resus room and […]
Behind the Guidelines
As ED staff we all know that in an emergency we have our trusty guidelines to turn to. This helps with cognitive off-load in stressful situations, but are these guidelines always up to date with the evidence? This post aims to look at some of the most current research, and make you question the guidelines […]
The secret to happy nurses? Pathway to Excellence
In the words of Monty Python (well sort of): ‘what has pathway ever done for me?’ This is what I hear when I walk around the hospital chatting to nurses and other staff about our journey on the pathway to excellence. There is an air of suspicion still that this will mean extra work for […]
Call the Midwife….
Situation A 32 year old female presents to the ED with PV bleeding 8 hours post delivering a healthy baby girl at home. It’s her second pregnancy, and second child. She had no complications with her first pregnancy, or with this one, and was deemed low risk for a home delivery. Initially she just noticed […]
Neuro obs: A right headache?
Situation How often do you take handover of a patient and get told “they’re on neuro obs?” Or get asked by the assessing clinician “can we start this lady on neuro obs please?”. Yet I recently had a conversation with one of our healthcare assistants who said she wasn’t trained to do neuro obs, only […]