Can Hospital at Night work for paediatrics and neonatal services?
Essentially, Hospital at Night was not designed for paediatrics or neonatal as it is about having teams with cross cover arrangements and transferability of skills. However, a number of larger paediatric units like Great Ormond Street Hospital, Elvalena Hospital at Guys and St Thomas’, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Alder Hey use the principals of Hospital at Night, but they use their staff in different ways. The report Children’s and Maternity Services 2009: Working Time Solutions is available from the healthcare workforce portal and may provide some helpful solutions. www.healthcareworkforce.nhs.uk/rcpchandrcog Is Working Time Directive compliance being achieved at the expense of missing other targets or downgrading patient care? On the contrary, WTD implementation supports improvements in patient services. Length of stay has been reduced by 20% at the Homerton following implementation of Hospital at Night and the Stockport and Macclesfield Urology network are cutting waiting lis
