Patients being treated at North Bristol NHS Trust are being given the opportunity to create with clinical staff, a personal plan for clinical care treatment recommendations in an emergency situation, where they may not be able to make decisions or express their wishes.
The Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) process, which launched today (Thursday October 10), is a new approach to encourage people to have an individual plan to try to ensure they get the right care and treatment in anticipated future emergencies.
The ReSPECT plan is created through conversations between a person and their health professionals and is recorded on a form. It includes their personal priorities for care and agreed clinical recommendations about care and treatment that could help them receive the right care in an emergency. Once the ReSPECT plan has been agreed it then stays with the patient and should be available immediately to healthcare professionals during the emergency.
Professionals such as ambulance crews, out of hours doctors, community healthcare teams, care home staff and hospital staff will be able to read the ReSPECT plan and then make decisions about how best to help the patient in the emergency.
Consultant Physician and Associate Medical Director, Dr Seema Srivastava, said: “I’m really pleased that we will now have a process for patients’ agreements and preferences for emergency care treatments which will be shared across our entire healthcare community in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG).
“We hope that the ReSPECT process will enable much earlier conversations with patients and their families about their illness and what treatments may improve their health and what is less likely to help them improve, so that we can plan for what to do in an emergency.
“Doing this in partnership with our neighbouring organisations means that hospitals, ambulance teams, community nurses and GPs will have better information to help them make urgent clinical decisions.”
The ReSPECT plan can be for any patient, but particularly those who have complex health needs, are likely to be nearing the end of their lives, or who are at risk of sudden deterioration or cardiac arrest.
However, some people may want to record their care and treatment preferences for other reasons.