Mater Dei Hospital’s emergency service will be revamped by February thanks to more staff, additional space and the introduction of “patient tracking”, according to Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia.
Dr Farrugia yesterday laid out detailed plans and time frames to bring the notoriously overburdened department in line with international standards and ensure patients are given the right service.
Ambulance paramedics will be doubled, from 44 to 88, while drivers and porters will all be trained as emergency ambulance responders, bringing everyone to the same level. The ambulance garage will be supported by 28 nurses to ensure these are not taken from the emergency department.
In December, the number of ambulances will increase from seven to 11 and some will be posted in Mosta and Paola to ensure a quicker response time to the north and south of the island.
The revamp in the ambulance service is expected to cost more than €534,000 but the changes in the emergency department will go beyond.
Incoming patients will start being seen by warranted doctors instead of the more junior foundation-year doctors, who will provide backup instead. Rather than separating patients into three groups, the hospital will use the American five-tiered system to make response time more efficient. A new afternoon shift will be added and 24 new nurses and doctors will be recruited to speed up the service.
By October, the Government plans to move the hospital’s Area 2 to the emergency department to ensure there is enough space for the larger staff complement to work.
Patients will be tagged using purpose-built IT software, enabling the hospital to track their progress and measure the efficiency of the department. This will start being introduced at the end of this month.
The plan has been dubbed ‘smart’, an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-lined.
It also involves the creation of an emergency section to deal specifically with under-16s, as part of the paediatric department, so as not to expose children to the trauma of the emergency department.
There will be an ongoing education campaign and the introduction of a bed and discharge management system to keep track of the availability of beds.
The reformed system, which is expected to be mostly in place by November, will be studied throughout November, December and January – the emergency depart-ment’s peak months – so it can be refined by February.
Dr Farrugia presented a summarised chart of the plan to MPs in Parliament, promising to bring the system in line with international standards.
The plan involves a number of key performance indicators, which include patient satisfaction, meaning its success would be dependent on people’s perception of the improved service.
Each action point has been given a specific target date of completion, enabling people to keep track of progress and hold the ministry to account.
The plan follows the section on emergency healthcare in the Labour Party’s electoral manifesto but Dr Farrugia pointed out that the starting point had to change because the problems were bigger than expected.
The plan takes on several suggestions from the Ombudsman’s report last year and the Hopkin’s report of 2011, which had yet to be implemented despite costing about €1.35 million.