Late finishes pilot launches

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We have been with working with UNISON to develop a pilot to help reduce late finishes and the impact these have on staff. As a result of this work, we are now in a position to launch the first phase of the pilot.

With effect from 28th May we are extending the end of shift arrangements by removing Green 1 calls from the incidents crews can be dispatched to in the last hour of their shift. Crews can now only be dispatched to Red 1, Red 2, Hot 1 back up requests or predicted Red 1 and 2 calls (if coding is subsequently confirmed not to be a Red 1 or Red 2 the crew will be stood down) in the last hour of their shift in an effort to further reduce late finishes. Full details can be found in the revised EOC standard operating procedure.

As part of the pilot, crews will also be able to changeover with an oncoming crew whilst attending patients under some circumstances where they identify that the incident will take them past the end of their shift. This changeover could happen at scene, at an ambulance station or at hospital depending on the circumstances. There are set criteria to be met to allow this to happen and full details can be found in this instruction.

We must ensure we look after the welfare and needs of our patients and therefore the attending clinician must confirm and document that it is clinically safe for the patient for the changeover of crew to take place. We will also require the patient to consent to the changeover which will confirm they understand what is happening and that they are happy to proceed with the changeover.

These new changes will be kept under review to assess the impact on staff and patients. We will continue to look for new ways to improve the situation around late finishes for crews and provide a better response to our patients; this is the first phase of the pilot and we will increase the measures to reduce late finishes whilst balancing this against patient safety and quality. If you have thoughts, feedback or comments on this pilot, or ideas on how we might look at further improvements, please continue to leave your comments below.

Published 28th May 2015 

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