NHS Dumfries and Galloway: balancing capacity with demand

Improving Patient Flow

Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary's plans to move to new purpose-built premises with single occupancy rooms by December 2017 meant it needed to address its patient flow challenges as a matter of priority. New, more effective ways of working needed to be implemented and embedded before the move took place.

The improvement team at Dumfries and Galloway attended a National Unscheduled Care event where they were introduced to the Daily Dynamic Discharge model, developed by the 6 Essential Actions to Improve Unscheduled Care Programme. Members of the team were so impressed by the model that they began planning how to implement it whilst travelling home from the event.

Project Manager, Patsy Pattie said:

"We believed that Daily Dynamic Discharge would provide a framework for implementing robust processes. It would enable us to improve patient care by making sure that patients were in the most appropriate setting for their medical condition. By improving the flow of patients through the hospital and eliminating boarding, we would be better equipped to cope during busy periods. We were also keen to ease pressure on staff by smoothing out weekly peaks and troughs in admissions and discharges."