The aim of this assignment is to analyse the journey of a 70 year old male with a blood stained cough though an emergency department.
The process would begin at triage, this is a system which is like a sorting system that helps to prioritise the care given to patients, this system is designed to allocate the patient to the appropriate area with in the emergency department (Manchester Triage Group 2002). It is important that the patients are triage correctly as a decision that underestimates a person's level of clinical urgency may delay time-critical interventions (Evans and Tippins 2007) .The patient stated that their symptoms at triage were a blood stained cough with a sharp pain that was worse on inspiration and coughing. By using the Manchester triage system the patient was triage as a yellow due to the pleuritic pain which the patient stated scored an 8, the patient was allocated to the resus area within the department, as a yellow the target time for that patient would be to be seen within a hour ( Manchester triage group 2007). In accordance with the NHS plan ( DOH 2000) which has set out targets that all patients that present to an emergency department are seen by a clinician, a decision
to admit or discharge and transferred to a ward if admitted is achieved within a four hour time scale. The NHS improvement plan (2004) shows that 94% of patients are seen, diagnosed and treated within four hours of arrival at an emergency department. Due to this tight time scale once the patient arrives in resus the nurse would be starting a nursing assessment,this assessment would included a full set of base line observations including GCS, an ECG, Chest X-ray, blood glucose,taking of bloods e.g. FBC, U and Es, D-Dimmer and a venflon inserted, also as the patient is scoring their pain as an 8 analgesia would also be administered. By doing these fundamental aspect of care not only will they aid the clinician to make an informed diagnosis but will also aid in...