Heartbeat: AMU team present at Birmingham Medical Education Conference
July 20, 2018
The acute medical unit (AMU) team from City Hospital were invited present a piece of their work at the Birmingham Medical Education Conference.
The conference, which is an annual meeting held at the school of education at University of Birmingham. It is one of the biggest events of its kind in the United Kingdom and is hosted jointly by Health Education West Midlands, the Medical School and the Professional Education and Research Unit at the University.
The team’s presentation focussed on the introduction of a hub nurse role to empower the medical specialist registrar (SpR) and was presented by Dr Dom Goold, Cheryl Shepherd, AMU Sister and Dr Donna Best.
Acute Medical Consultant, Dr Sarb Clare, explained more to Heartbeat. She said: “Essentially the medical SpR is the workhorse of the hospital 24/7 and we need to reprieve them of as much duties as possible in order to maintain good patient flow.
“Due to the pressures they are under, there is a decline in doctors wanting to get into general and acute Medicine and it is a top priority for the Royal College of Physicians to address this matter.
“To address it locally, Senior Charge Nurse, Terry Byrne City created the hub nurse role who works alongside the AMU coordinator. After training and education, this nurse takes on the role of taking medical referrals from various sources, including A&E, GP surgeries and clinics.
“This role was traditionally done by the SpRs, which would take them away from the frontline and see them spending hours on the phone. The hub nurse role, has not only alleviated this and allowed them to spend more time with patients, but has also empowered our nurses and created more development opportunities for them.”
Sarb added: “It set an example for other units of better ways of working and we are aiming to deploy this to Sandwell AMU shortly.
“Credit for this must to go our amazing Terry for leading and delivering this project and to our nursing team who have taken on this role with real tenacity and professionalism.”