A substantial investment in ward nurses and equipment has been announced across Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Goole hospitals with more than £1.6million being spent.
The money will be used to ensure that the right staff, with the right skills, are in the right place at the right time across Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust’s (NLaG) hospitals.
In addition to ward nursing the Trust has purchased £500,000 worth of new equipment for the wards which is currently being rolled out. Funding came from Trust funds, as well as a donation from its official charity The Health Tree Foundation (HTF).
NLaG chief nurse Ellie Monkhouse said: “I am delighted to be able to announce this significant investment in our nursing teams as it will help to ensure safe, sustainable and productive staffing for the future.”
“This is just the first phase of investment as we will be undertaking reviews of maternity and our community services over the coming few months.”
“Patient safety is paramount to all that we do as nurses, so ensuring we have sufficient suitably qualified, competent, skilled, experienced staff to meet the needs of our patients safely and effectively is key.”
“It really is about ensuring staff working on the frontline have the right staff, skill mix, and support 24-hours to ensure they can provide the high quality of care we all aspire to delivering.”
“Our nursing teams have been involved every step of the way and I have met with every ward manager to review and discuss our recommendations for investment. It is essential I have their input as they are the ones delivering patient care.”
The £1.1m first phase of funding will be spent on:
- Introduction of a twilight shift for registered nurses to help match activity levels of patient flow into the evening
- Support an increase in staffing at weekends
- Support better skill mix across wards
- Investment in our A&Es during twilight and more senior leadership overnight.
Ellie added: “We have embedded a new six monthly rolling review which will reflect seasonal changes and will be reported to our Trust Board. The whole aim is to ensure we have a skilled and motivated workforce which is delivering high quality patient care.”
In addition to this latest round of new equipment, the Trust announced in March a £600,000 investment over the next four years in a replacement programme for beds. In the first phase £95,000 has been spent on 80 new electric beds, 40 at Scunthorpe and Grimsby hospitals. In addition to these the Trust is also investing £232,000 in replacement birthing beds for the maternity wards.
The wards have also received 40 new patient hoists, as well as slide sheets for the end of every inpatient bed.
Clare Woodard, HTF charity manager, said: “We were delighted to be able to help the Trust with providing some of this equipment which will be used on a daily basis on wards and departments across the three hospital sites.
“We are so grateful to our wonderfully generous supporters who tirelessly fundraise for the charity, making it possible for us to provide extra help for local patients.”
The £500,000 is being spent on:
- 96 dynomaps (blood pressure monitoring devices)
- 95 oxygen saturation monitors
- 131 sensor alarms to help prevent falls
- 104 nebulisers
- 290 IV drip stands
- 155 tympanics (thermometers)
- 61 commodes
- Seven bair hugger warming blankets
- Three ECG machines
- Three bladder scanners
- 61 commodes
- 454 catheter stands
- 10 tens machines
- Five ophthalmoscopes
- Four Bili beds (used for babies who need specialist light therapy)
- Two baby saturation monitors
- Four data scopes (specialised maternity equipment to pick up baby’s rhythms )
- Eight foetal heart dopplers (hand-held ultrasound machines used to detect the fetal heartbeat for prenatal care)
- Four apnoeic monitors (machines that detect baby and children’s chest movements and will alarm if the child is not breathing)
- Six baby thermometers
The trusts annual budget is £330 million and employs around 6,500 people.
