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Making Your Voice Heard..
The first decade of the Eastern Health and Social Services
Council
1997-98: The first Casualty
Watch
Every three months, Northern
Ireland's four health and social services councils conduct
a special exercise known as a 'Casualty Watch'. This involves
council staff visiting all accident and emergency units
at local hospitals to assess the times that patients must
wait there before receiving treatment or admission to a
hospital ward.
The first Casualty Watch
was carried out in January 1998. By simultaneously carrying
out these exercises across all hospitals in Northern Ireland,
the councils are able to compare waiting times between hospitals.
The first Casualty Watch was
a landmark initiative for the Council because it very clearly
demonstrated that it could indeed serve as a very effective
'watchdog' organisation. The fact that this initiative has
now endured for nearly four years is testimony to its value
- and of the high demand that continues to be placed upon
all accident and emergency services.
The Council very much appreciates
that doctors, nurses and other staff based in hospital accident
and emergency units work very hard on behalf of their patients.
The objective of the casualty Watch is to monitor the time
needed before patients can see the doctor or nurse - not
the quality of the expertise or care offered to them.
Nevertheless, the Casualty
Watch has, since its inception, shown that patients attending
accident and emergency units must all too frequently wait
too long before receiving treatment. This fact has been
communicated regularly by the Eastern Council to the Eastern
Health and Social Services Board, to local hospitals trusts
and to government.
The Council will continue
to undertake its regular Casualty Watch until such times
as waiting times there are reduced to an acceptable level.
Patients who are often in pain and discomfort should not
have to face the prospect of a lengthy wait - or wait upon
a trolley bed rather than one in a hospital ward.
The Casualty watch is therefore
a vigil that will be maintained for the benefits of patients,
hospital staff and the wider community...
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