Cardiff & Vale Health Charity has provided Cardiff Eye Treatment Centre’s patient pager system for both Suite 8 and 7 UHW Outpatients.
The Ophthalmology Department is the busiest Outpatients unit within UHW and caters for more than 70,000 patients per year. Due to the current pandemic, the waiting area capacity had to be cut in-line with social distancing requirements which limited the amount of patients who could be accommodated at a given time. It is a particular problem in the Eye Treatment Centre as most patients tend to be elderly and are accompanied by family or friends to the appointment.
With the charity’s support, a patient pager system has been introduced. The equipment is easy for patients’ use. Pagers are handed to patients who are early for their appointments and then advised to wait in UHW concourse or in an outside space where social distancing is easy to achieve. The patients are then paged five minutes before their scheduled appointment to return to the unit before being screened for entry. The pagers are then cleaned ready for the next patient.
Kath Daniel Deputy Clinic Nurse Manager says “The pagers have been a great success and really help with social distancing by reducing the number of people within the Eye Treatment Centre. This makes for a safer clinic for both patients and staff. The reduced waiting area capacity is then better managed to allow the most immobile patients to remain, whilst those who are more able can arrive on a Just-In-Time basis.
It is a simple and effective solution in these times but without the funding from the Health Charity, it would not have been possible. Experience is showing that it has been greatly received by patients and staff.”
