Latest Updates NEW COMBINED ASSESSMENT UNIT Services at the Belford Hospital in Fort William are being redesigned to reduce waiting times and the length of time people need to stay in hospital. Click here.. Featured Entries SAFEST PLACE IN THE UK In a recent police report, Lochaber has recently been found to be the safest place to live in the UK. Click here. New Stroke Team Launched The team will support people in their own homes. Click here. Lochaber Internet Lochaber Internet has a wide range of information about our area. Click here.

NEW COMBINED ASSESSMENT UNIT

Services at the Belford Hospital in Fort William are being redesigned to reduce waiting times and the length of time people need to stay in hospital.

A radical redesign of services at Belford Hospital in Fort William has led to reduced waiting times and shorter hospital stays for patients, NHS Highland said this week. Last November, the surgical and medical wards at the hospital were merged to form a Combined Assessment Unit (CAU) and patients - except those requiring emergency treatment in the Accident and Emergency department and those attending for planned treatment - have been assessed in the CAU. Early results, outlined by NHS Highland on Monday, show the unit is working well. Since the opening of the CAU, there has been a 50 per cent reduction in Out of Hours (OOH) admissions, a reduction in length of stay and a 25 per cent increase in the number of people being treated as day cases. Marie Law, clinical services manager at the Belford Hospital, said: "We realised we needed to redesign our services to ensure we would be able to continue to deliver them in the future, so we decided to radically change our service by combining all our resources and clinical expertise to create a Combined Assessment Unit. "This is all part of a move to shift the balance of care away from acute hospital settings and towards treating people in their own homes whenever possible." Ms Law said the aims of the unit were to provide a streamlined assessment route, to improve access to acute services and to divert unnecessary activity from the A&E department. Other aims were to reduce inappropriate admissions, particularly out of hours, and to speed up appropriate planned and supported discharge, with an associated reduction in the length of time patients need to stay in hospital. The CAU has a team of staff, consisting of consultants, nurses and care assistants. A pharmacist is also attached to the unit. The team assesses the need of the patient for further investigation and provides all necessary initial treatment and stabilisation. After assessment, by both surgical and medical consultants, a decision is made to either discharge the patient directly home or admit them to a specialist ward for further treatment within 48 hours. Ms Law said the number of new presentations to A&E at the Belford fell following the opening of the CAU from 880 in December 2008 to 643 in December 2009 and 901 in January 2009 to 755 in January 2010. The figures for February 2010 are not yet available. She said: "This reduction in admissions to A&E has improved the ability of the department to undertake emergency activity, particularly during the recognised avalanche season." Although there was evidence that other work was already reducing the number of OOH admissions, a dra matic reduction in these admissions directly coincided with the opening of the CAU. Ms Law said: "We have seen a reduction in the length of time patients stay in both surgical and medical specialities. "It is hoped that by improving access to acute services patients will be reviewed earlier, preventing the need for emergency admission at a later date. This is particularly important for patients with medical problems. "As a result of expanding the Day Case Unit, the surgical team has improved its ability to provide this service to the local community." The percentage of surgical patients staying in hospital for three days or less has risen from 62 per cent in December 2008 to 91 per cent in December 2009 and 53 per cent of medical patients are staying for a maximum of three days. The overall longest stay was two weeks in December 2009-January 2010 compared to 91 days in the previous year. Mrs Law added the success of the ward was due to the "enthusiasm and innovation" of all hospital staff.