Walk-in clinics ease EDs pressure
Walk-in clinics run by nurses may ease the pressure on emergency departments. With greater powers to prescribe medications and treat injuries, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation has called on both sides of politics to explore opening such clinics in Adelaide, and at least one rural centre.
Walk-in clinics run by nurses may ease the pressure on emergency departments.
With greater powers to prescribe medications and treat injuries, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation has called on both sides of politics to explore opening such clinics in Adelaide, and at least one rural centre.
Under the union’s plan, the clinics would be run by nurses with postgraduate qualifications and specialist training and would not require appointments.
AdelaideNow reports the clinics would operate separately from hospital emergency departments but could be connected to GP clinics.
Staff could treat cases such as simple fractures, stitches, immunisations or chronic diseases like asthma or diabetes, leaving hospital emergency departments to treat people with more life-threatening and immediate conditions.
The model, successfully used in Canada and the UK, would allow patients with less urgent conditions to be seen faster.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary, Elizabeth Dabars, claimed the model would not necessarily require the hiring of more nurses but funding would be needed to upskill existing staff.
SA Health executive director of health system performance, Jenny Richter, said many of the state’s public hospitals already had nurse-led clinics within or working with their emergency departments, adding waiting times in EDs were falling.
Advocating a broader role for nurses, SA Health’s chief nurse and midwifery officer, Lydia Dennett, said nurses overseas were taking on roles traditionally performed by doctors in positions such as nurse endoscopist or nurse sedationist.
She said ‘nurses of the future’ would take on greater responsibility for admitting patients, prescribing medications, ordering tests and administering anaesthetics, increasingly training in hi-tech simulation laboratories and responding to growing demand for in-home care.
Opposition health spokesman, Martin Hamilton-Smith, added anything “nurses can do to ease the burden on doctors ought to be explored”.
