"Clozapine induced tacycardiea"

All of our service users health and wellbeing are taken very seriously and any changes are assessed and attended to promptly. Any concerns requiring medical intervention are escalated quickly at that time and staff contact the duty doctors on site for medical review. On this occasion the nurse in charge contacted the duty doctor who attended the ward and carried out a thorough physical assessment. Following this, the advice was for further review at Wansbeck general hospital – but it was not classed as an emergency. The staff team were advised that 999 was not required at that time but to continue to monitor the service users physical health and contact ambulance liaison to transfer the service user and a member of staff to the acute hospital. Should anything change during that time the staff team were advised to ring 999 as an emergency. This fortunately was not needed but there was a delay in the ambulance response time due to pressures on their service for emergency contacts. This resulted in staff escorting the service user by car to Wansbeck hospital for further monitoring. As soon as the staff were aware of a delay in transport they acted promptly to transfer the service user. We apologise for any distress this may have caused the family and would encourage them to contact the following should they require more information- Melanie Hyman Ward manger Embleton ward 01670501706