On Saturday the 4th July I lost my Independence and was once again, in St Heliers Hospital! I spent the first night in the SDEC unit, finally being given a bed in Ward B1 Ward B1 which houses the Whitfield Unit and the Haematology Day Unit, specializing in the treatment of ongoing Blood Conditions.
Now one would think Ward B1 being a Haematology Day Unit, specializing in the treatment of ongoing Blood Conditions, that they would have a Vein Finder, but NO!
The only one in the hospital appears to be in SDEC and when they went to use it, at my request they found it was not working. They suspected it had not been charged, I found out later that it's actually broken as Ward B1 had tried to borrow it.
IMHO every ward where they insert cannulas should have one of these bits of medical equipment. They cost £1,500 approx. The amount of time they save and as someone with small deep veins the success rate of finding a vein that will get more than two uses out of a cannular is and the lack of pain is immeasurable. I had 5 failures until they got an anaesthetist with an ultrasound scanner to find a bigger vein.
NHS consultants in England received a confirmed 3.5% pay uplift for the 2026/27 financial year, which was backdated to April 1, 2026. Following this increase, baseline full-time salaries range from £113,565 for starting Threshold 1 up to £150,570 for Threshold 4 after 14 years of experience.
Despite this annual rise, the British Medical Association (BMA) voted in favour of ongoing industrial action over continuing disputes regarding real-term pay losses and working week conditions.
So 3.5% of the lowest paid consultants wage increase will be £3,975 which equates to buying 2.7 Vein Finders. I know it will be a different budget, But for the hospital to have one, that other wards have to go and borrow and then to find out, it's now broken is sickening.
Vein Finders are not new technology, they are at least 10 years old, thus one has to ask why has not each ward that fit cannulas got one each?
An SDEC (Same Day Emergency Care) unit in a hospital provides rapid assessment, diagnosis, and treatment for patients with acute medical conditions. The goal is to provide same-day care so patients can safely return home the same day without needing an overnight hospital admission.
How SDEC Works
SDEC acts as an alternative to a traditional hospital admission or a prolonged wait in the Emergency Department (ED).
- Referral Only: SDEC is not a walk-in service. Patients must be referred by a healthcare professional, such as their GP, the ambulance service, NHS 111, or the hospital's Emergency Department.
- The Process: Upon arrival, patients are assessed by a multidisciplinary team (doctors, nurses, and specialists) and undergo necessary diagnostic tests (like blood tests, X-rays, or scans) on the same day.
- Common Conditions Treated: Units typically handle conditions such as chest pain, headaches, abnormal blood test results, suspected blood clots, anemia, and acute infections.
- Faster turnaround: Patients are usually assessed and treated within 4 to 8 hours.
- Reduces hospital strain: By avoiding unnecessary overnight stays, hospitals can free up beds and reduce wait times across the emergency pathway.
I managed to escape early evening on Tuesday the 7th July, as usual the 3P's Practices Procedures and Protocols were not adhered too, and there are multiple errors on my Inpatient GP Discharge letter which I spent a long time resolving with the GP's Practice Pharmacist, the following day.
Whist in the hospital, they had an Audit and everyone was told to ensure certain things were in place. I was luckily asked for feed back from the inspector and took them to the shower room on Ward B1 and showed them that there was a normal blue plastic chair and no shower chair provided, that there are no grab rails provided to assist the accompanying nurse or patient stabilise themselves in the showering recess.
Shower Chairs are not expensive, so why is a basic low plastic chair provided ?
I explained I had been a structural engineer and a CDMC basically health and safety for construction projects and that hand rail requirements are in part M of the building regulations approved documents and in fact a new additional approved document is just being published, offering even more guidance.
The hospital give you a leaflet about falls in hospital and have not provided the basics. They have no WC extenders to bring a normal WC up to disabled height, they have to do an assessment and get one provided for a specific room user. Of course that never happens.
Their solution to wheel a commode over the wc, however commode bowl can not be used as there is not the room between the commode and the top of the WC.
The shape of the holes in the commode means that when one pees it goes in front of the WC bowl and all down the patients legs and the floor.
That happened to me at my last stay, and the same solution was suggested this time I was in, by other nurses until I pointed out the miss alignment of the holes and explained what would happen, if they tried that as a solution to the height problem.
Toilet raised are not expensive and again why do they not have some to quickly modify the WC's to the requirements of disabled users ?
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