"Visit to Acute Assessment Unit at BGH"

Dear Gracies Dad,

Thank you so much for taking the time to tell us of your experience in AAU. Without people taking the time to tell us their story, we cannot make changes to try to make it better for others and so we really appreciate the thought that you have put into this feedback.

The Acute Assessment Unit is a relatively new service for the BGH and aims to try to stream the correct patients to the correct place. Three years ago (had you presented with a swollen leg) you would have been admitted to the hospital where you would have remained until your leg was scanned. If this was late in the day or you were frail and from a far away part of the region, it is likely that it would involve an overnight stay. In order to try to prevent this and allow people to be at home, we created AAU where patients are given an appointment time to come and be reviewed. There is a separate team of doctors (Monday - Friday) looking after this area and therefore ward rounds should not affect it. The availability of scans and other diagnostics are unpredictable as, as you have pointed out, we tend to prioritise inpatient work first as these individuals tend to be sicker. However despite this, often patients coming through AAU requiring scans receive these within an hour or two of their arrival. Having worked in a number of acute hospitals, the radiology department at the BGH is one of the most responsive I have ever worked with and whilst there can be unpredictable delays due to emergency work, they are generally very timely. I am not sure about the conversation that you overheard but I can assure you that every department within radiology works full tilt between 0900 - 1700 and often beyond this time, with only short gaps for staff to have lunch.

Our parking challenges remain a great source of angst for patients and staff alike! At the BGH, we have had open visiting across the hospital since March 2016 as there is good evidence to suggest that patients do better when their relatives are able to visit (especially in the case of the frail elderly). We remain a busy hospital with hundreds of outpatient appointments every day and I think this is probably the majority of the cars that you see. Staff are not allowed to park in the main car parks and are generally parked in the more distant car parks. Although I do not have an immediate answer to this problem, you have made me consider possible solutions including posters within the waiting room to assure patients and relatives that they will not receive fines if over 4 hours. There may also be something around designated parking for this area but I will need to consider this in more detail and will certainly feedback to you in due course in relation to this.

A short time ago (in response to a negative experience that was fed back to us), we created an information leaflet about AAU which should be given to each patient, either by their GP or on arrival. This outlines the activity that goes through AAU and why there may be apparent delays for some patients. I hope that you received one of these leaflets and would be delighted if you were able to let us know if it gave you the information you required.

At NHS Borders we are always striving to improve the service that we provide to patients and in my mind, changes to any service should be driven by the experiences of those using them. For this reason, I am a massive advocate of Care Opinion and the ability that it provides to patients to tell us their story (good and bad) so that we can use this to either feedback to staff on their performance or make changes where necessary. Thank you very much once again for telling us of your experience.

Best wishes,

Lynn