Update to Hospital Handover Process

In March 2023, we issued a clinical update regarding the introduction of a checklist for the handover of patients at the Emergency Department. This went live across the Trust on 18^th April 2023.

As a reminder the checklist has been designed to support ambulance clinicians to identify patients who may wait for triage by a hospital clinician, without a requirement for ambulance clinicians to wait with them. It provides a structured set of seven questions (three procedural and four clinical) that when applied may enable ambulance clinicians to become available to respond to waiting emergencies.

There are three exclusions to the handover safety checklist: patients immobilised, a handover wait of less than 45 minutes and children under 16. The seven questions in the checklist have yes/no answers, with any negative answer meaning the patient does not meet the criteria, however certain questions may also be immediately addressed. For example, question one asks if the patient on a hospital bed/trolley/chair and the availability of a chair may be all that is required to ensure the handover safety checklist is met, in such an instance it should be incumbent to make all efforts to address this point.

Following feedback we have amended the NEWS 2 score down to 4 from 6 and also provided some more clarity on patients that we may not leave if they are confused or are suffering from dementia. We have also updated the Q and A section and provided guidance on how we will record the use of the checklist on both the CAD record but also on the ePCR.

• You can read the Clinical Update here
• You can read the checklist here

Published 19th May 2023