Rota Design for 2009 - North Western Deanery

1.0 Roles and responsibilities:1.1 The executive medical director and executive nursedirector are responsible for ensuring trust widecompliance with the policy.1.2 All medical staff are responsible to the executivemedical director to ensure individual compliancewith this policy.1.3 Deputy director of nursing and governance, ADNSand matron are responsible to the executive nursedirector to ensure the policy is implemented withineach directorate across the trust.1.4 Ward/ department managers have a responsibilityto the ADNS and matron for implementing thepolicy at local level and ensuring compliance.1.5 All trust staff have a responsibility to comply withthe policy.2.0 Protocol2.1 Crash calls and life threatening emergencies.● The crash call procedure is initiated by theswitch operator on receipt of a 2222 call fromany ward or department.2.2 Contacting Medical Staff during Normal WorkingHours.During normal working hours medical staff should onlybe bleeped between their routine visit to the ward forgenuine urgencies.In order to reduce the need to use the bleep systemguidelines have been developed to enhance effectivecommunication between the medical staff and clinicalareas.• The doctor should communicate the next plannedvisit to the clinical area to the coordinator• The doctor is responsible for informing the clinicalarea coordinator of any bleep free time (for breaks,study, attendance of handover etc)• There should be a communication system in theclinical area (book, whiteboard etc) where all tasksand nonurgent work for medical staff can be loggedfor the next planned visit• Medical staff can also leave nonurgent messages orcomments using the above method.• All nonurgent routine work should be completed bythe ward based team during normal working hoursto reduce the amount of uncompleted work passedon to the out of hours’ team• The doctor must contact the coordinator of theclinical area on arrival and before departure.If there is the need to bleep the medical staff for urgentreasons the following guidelines should be used:• If possible the ward coordinator or shift leadershould be responsible for contacting andcommunicating with the doctor• The trust EWS algorithm should be followed if apatient has a score of three or above• All bleeps made to doctors should be logged withtime, bleep number and reason for the bleep in thepatient’s care record by the nurse responsible forbleeping and communicating with the doctor.2.3 Contacting medical staff out of hours.• Between the hours of 5pm and 9pm weekdays anddaytime at weekends from 7.30am until 9pm theMedical Staff must only be bleeped for urgent calls,as during normal working hours, with routine jobsbeing allocated to the on call teams planned visits• Wards must utilize staff with extended role skills tocomplete patient care where appropriate(venepuncture, cannulation, catheterization etc)calling for medical assistance only when a patients’condition determines the need for medical input• Out of hours between the hours of 9pm and 7.30am the Hospital at Night Team is responsible for thereview of patients across the trust (excludingspecialty services which will continue to use thebleep method for contacting their on call team), andall calls must be filtered through to the night sitecoordinator via the rapid response system or bleep3092, to allow the priority of patient care and theallocation of each request to the most appropriatelycompetent member of the available Hospital atNight Team.• The Hospital at Night team consists of:• Medical and surgical on call doctors from 9pmuntil 7.30am (excluding specialty services)• The night site coordinator• The bed manager• nurse clinician• clinical support.All bleeps/calls to medical staff, nurse clinician andclinical support must be directed to the night sitecoordinator between the hours of 9pm and 7.30 am(via the Rapid Response System or Bleep 3092). Anybleep directly to the above members of the hospital atnight team between these hours will be redirected bythe individual to the night site coordinator.44