Extra pharmacists are to be recruited to help get Fife’s hospital patients home over weekends.
The move is a key part of NHS Fife’s plan to cope with the traditional surge in demand on services over winter.
The pharmacists will form part of a weekend team including consultants and nurse prescribers, who will visit wards together to ensure patients who are fit enough to go home are not delayed.
Fife Health and Social Care Partnership is also working closely with the voluntary sector, including homeless and veterans’ charities, to make sure everyone has an appropriate place to go to once they leave hospital.
Earlier this month, health services in Fife were given an additional £640,000 by the Scottish Government to get people home on Saturdays and Sundays when there are often fewer discharges leading to a backlog on Monday mornings.
Partnership director Michael Kellet said this year’s winter plan had an increased focus on preventing unnecessary hospital admissions and creating an effective discharge system.
“We are working hard to cement arrangements for a 7/7 pharmacy,” he said.
“At the moment it relies on pharmacists volunteering to work at weekends but we’re trying to regulate that and have put out adverts asking for pharmacists to work weekends.
“We got more interest than we expected.”
Val Hatch, NHS Fife’s general manager for emergency care, said the weekend team would be tested over the next four to eight weeks.
“The team will have a nurse prescriber and a pharmacist who will work as a single team,” she said.
“An additional consultant will be there on Saturdays and Sundays and I’m hopeful of getting a positive response to that.”
Ms Hatch said the reorganisation of beds in the acute sector would also be of significant help.
“There will be no overall change in bed numbers in the acute sector but what there will be is a redistribution of beds in the hospital,” she said.
“That’s primarily to make sure we get people in the right place to be looked after by the right clinical teams.”
Health board chair Tricia Marwick said staff had helped last year by screening patients for flu when they were admitted.
“It’s not overstating it to say they saved us a considerable amount of heartache last year,” she added.
