Meet The Team: Surgical Day Case Unit, Treatment Centre, QHB
Want to get to know some of our #TeamUHDB colleagues a little better?
We are delighted to introduce our new Meet The Team series, where we will be speaking with colleagues across our five sites to get to know them a little better, and share what they do across our organisation.
We start with the Surgical Day Case Unit in the Treatment Centre at Queen’s Hospital Burton, and spoke with Sister within the team, Milly Micallef. Whilst there has been more recent attention, including a visit from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Barclay MP, on the brand new Treatment Centre extension, this team have been providing care to patients at QHB for over fifteen years.
The Surgical Day Case Unit provides care for patients from a variety of specialities. This includes ENT, ophthalmology, gynaecology, orthopaedics, urology, general surgery, maxillofacial surgery, plastics and breast surgery. They also care for patients undergoing pain management nerve blocks and rheumatology steroid injections.
Milly added: “We have 6 theatres, a treatment room, a recovery area, male/female wards and an ophthalmology area.”
“We admit, treat and then discharge patients within the time it takes to get to know them - usually within a morning or an afternoon. Exactly what it ‘says on the tin’, you could say! Getting patients in, giving them the care they need, and then discharging them to their own homes and families as soon as safely possible is our number one priority. We work as a very close knit family to achieve this wherever we can.”
In doing so, the team delivers efficient and timely care, works towards reducing the waiting list backlog, and frees up greater capacity at QHB, and UHDB more broadly.
As a result, Milly is keen for her team to care for even more patients, saying that their ‘strength’ is treating a large number of patients efficiently, and that they want to work towards meeting the national target of 75% of elective surgeries being through day case.
“We provide a service to patients who have been waiting, in some cases, months for their surgery. Here, our patients do not need hospital beds, and a typical length of stay in the unit post-procedure is as little as 1-2 hours.
“We also are able to make autonomous clinical decisions for our patients through Nurse Led Discharge – meaning our patients can progress through their journey without the delays of needing medical staff to confirm discharge suitability.
“Without us, waiting lists could be even longer, and pressure on the main hospital for beds would mean that relatively minor surgeries could see extensive delays.
“Being able to deliver care within such a short timeframe takes pressure off the main hospital – and it feels really rewarding to know you’re helping the whole service be more effective in providing care to our community.”
Milly believes the team dynamic at the unit is essential to delivering the quality of the care that they aim for.
“Patients are often very anxious when they arrive here - and we help to reduce that anxiety and make them feel relaxed and comfortable, from admission to discharge, in what can be a very stressful day.
“We are warm, friendly, dynamic and adaptable. When faced with a challenge, we always rise to it together. We’re a little family in a way! We have our ups and downs, but we work together so well and really are ‘close-knit’.
“We can tell this shows to the patients here – they tell us what a positive experience they have here, which motivates us even more to continue to grow and develop our team and our service”.
Pictured (L-R): Health Care Support Worker, Nusrat Shaukat; Staff Nurse, Yvonne McComish; Staff Nurse, Claire Dennis; Sister, Lynn Dennis; Staff Nurse, Andrea Gallagher; Assistant Practitioner, Julie Hutton; Health Care Support Worker, Trudy Jones; Sister, Milly Micallef; Staff Nurse, Pedro Ibias
Do you work in an area that you’d like to be featured in our Meet The Team series? If so, please contact us with your name, job title, and department/team – at uhdb.communications@nhs.net, and we will get in touch.