“I find my job to be very fulfilling and I enjoy playing a small part in helping patients with more complex needs to be able to use the service without any extra stress”
Sat upstairs within the hustle and bustle of our emergency operations centre in Newcastle are our patient transport service planning team. Today scheduled care dispatch officer, Nicola Mather, and communications officers Shauny Crulley and Madison ‘Maddi’ Wilson-Brown are looking after the planning of the following day’s patient transport service journeys.
Nicola and Shauny are the two people responsible for planning over 2,500 patient journeys for the services patient transport teams. Armed with an intricate and detailed knowledge of the service’s vehicles, equipment, and their colleagues, they use the day to assign patients to crews who can help them get to and from their hospital appointments. During their shift, they juggle several complexities that are challenges for the planning duo, from changes to patient accessibility and mobility, vehicle breakdowns, and staff absences. One such complexity “can be like a domino effect” says Shauny,
“In planning we start with anywhere between 2,300-2,900 unallocated patients per day and need to allocate these to appropriate crews and vehicles. We locate equipment, swap vehicles, liaise with patients and hospitals to ensure we plan in the most efficient manner.”
Although the team use a system called ‘auto-plan’ which automatically plans many of their journeys, the duo then must go through all flagged journeys and manually find solutions to patient and crew complexities.
“This can however become challenging due to the different roles on the road which have different skill levels and abilities, as well as complex mobilities that require multiple crews or equipment.
Nevertheless, the team enjoys their jobs, and the role they play in the patient journey. Shauny concludes: “Although it can be quite stressful and complex, I find it quite fulfilling knowing that I am assisting those who are unable to get themselves to and from their appointments, a lot of which are life-saving.”
Nicola echo’s this statement, saying: “My favourite thing about my role is how challenging it is. Every day is different and provides different puzzles to solve to get patients where they need to be on time.”
Sat beside Nicola and Shauny is Maddi who wears two hats in our emergency operations centre team. Today she is acting as dispatch support. Maddi, like Nicola and Shauny, plays a vital role within the team; liaising with hospitals and patients to ensure the best care is provided by the service. One of her roles is supported by the teams colleagues in patient transport service call handling, who collect information to support patients in receiving assessments from the service to determine their care needs.
Maddi looks after these assessments, checking information from patients and hospitals, and making sure the assessment requests are with team managers in-time for them to be completed before the patient requires any transport. It’s a seemingly small job, but makes the world of difference for patients with more complex needs. When acting as a communications officer, Maddi even gets the chance to see this work play out and witness the impact it has on her patients. She says: I find it to be very fulfilling and I enjoy playing a small part in helping patients with more complex needs to be able to use the service without any extra stress. When I am on day control, it’s nice to see a patient who I have had a part in the assessment for have a smooth sailing journey.”
The patient transport service crews receive hundreds of patient appreciations each year; the impact of them and all those behind the scenes that work hard to keep the service moving, isn’t understated. The role these teams play is even more important in the modern healthcare environment, where ambulance services play an even larger role in ensuring patient wellbeing outside of emergency care. Nicola concludes: “PATIENT TRANSPORT SERVICE bridge a massive gap between medical care and social care, and every member of staff in control and on the road go above and beyond every day to make a difference in patients’ lives. We try to achieve the best outcome for patients, hospitals, and the ambulance service with what can feel like limited resources.”
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