More patients to be treated at home as RAH set to roll out new service
dailyrecord.co.ukA new service is being introduced at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley to help free up hospital beds and reduce the length of time patients need to spend in them.Upwards of 11,000 bed days have been freed up in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde hospitals so far this year thanks to the service.The Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (OPAT) service supports early discharge for patients with complex infections, who would otherwise require a long hospital stay, and provides an alternative to hospital admission for patients with other conditions requiring a shorter stay such as cellulitis or complicated urinary tract infection. Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire.
Sign up to our newsletters here. It basically means that patients who are medically stable but need short to long term intravenous antibiotic treatment, who would have stayed in hospital are being sent home instead with the OPAT team issuing them instructions on how to self-administer IV antibiotics.Hospital bosses say the service is helping reduce the “anxiety and risks involved with being in hospital” as well as benefiting the health service by freeing up much-needed bed space.Caroline Macnaughton, a former classroom assistant from Paisley, has suffered acute bouts of cellulitis ever since mysteriously being bitten on holiday more than eight years ago.She is one of the patients to have benefitted from the OPAT service so far.
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