6 December 2019
Doctors and Nurses at Shropshire’s acute hospitals are to get support in the evenings, at weekends and during Bank Holidays in order to improve patient flow and reduce hospital length of stay.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) is introducing its first cohort of Medical Assistants (MAs), who will work with Medical and Surgical staff.
The MAs will be paid to work fixed hours during evenings, weekends and Bank Holidays to support on-call and ward-cover Junior Doctors and ward nurses with specific tasks including siting cannulas, taking blood samples and blood cultures and performing ECGs (electrocardiograms).
The role will allow MAs to carry out the relatively simple tasks, helping to free up the time of senior members of staff. MAs are senior medical students who have been signed off as competent in these specific tasks by senior nursing skills educators. They will work under the supervision of the on-call Doctors.
Dr Koottalai Srinivasan, Hospital Dean, said: “We are delighted to welcome our first cohort of Medical Assistants.
“This initiative should help improve patient flow and safety by supporting our very busy medical and nursing teams on the wards.
“I want to extend my thanks to Denise Rotchell, Temporary Staffing Manager, the Recruitment team, Nancy Moreton and Karen Bryan, Senior Nurse Skills Educators, senior members of the medical executive committee and the Trust Executives for their support for this positive initiative.”