Trust assessment unit wins national acute medicine competition
A Royal Derby Hospital unit has been named the winner of a national competition aimed at celebrating the importance of acute medicine.
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton chose 21 June to focus on the life-saving work that takes place every day at the hospital’s Medical Assessment Unit (MAU), as part of Acute Medicine Awareness Week.
Throughout the week, acute medicine units from across the UK chose a day to organise different activities to celebrate the specialty, before then submitting images from the day to the Society for Acute Medicine.
Judges have now selected MAU as the competition winners, after staff hosted a 24-hour ‘swingballathon’ and held a cake sale to raise both awareness of the unit and funds for Derby Hospitals Charity.
Lee Doyle, General Manager of Acute Medicine at the Royal Derby Hospital, said: “We are extremely proud of all of our staff working in the Medical Assessment Unit and are delighted to have been named the national winners of this competition by the Society for Acute Medicine. Winning this award has also allowed us to raise awareness of the unit and the patients we care for. MAU is a high intensity area with a high turnover of patients on a daily basis. All of our staff working in the unit are extremely dedicated to ensuring our patients always receive the high quality level of care that they deserve.”
Medical patients can be sent to MAU from A&E or by their GP, with staff then assessing the patient’s condition and beginning their treatment, by admitting them to an appropriate medical ward or discharging them home.
Nearly 30,000 patients were treated in MAU last year, with the busiest day seeing 105 patients attend the unit.
On average, the team treats 82 patients every day for a variety of conditions, including stroke, sepsis and cancer, with more than 75% of these patients attending the department via A&E.