Introduced to improve the efficiency of night-time services
Free-up resources which could be better utilised during the day
Reasons for HAN
Significant activity occurs during the evening period but is reduced after midnight
Activity varies by speciality
There are very low lebels of activity in Trauma and Orthopaedics and medical/surgical specialities
Few patients have life-threatening conditions
1/4 of the junior doctors time is spent on tasks that do not require medical skills (requesting investigations, finding notes)
Nearly 1/2 of junior doctor time is spent repeating tasks such as clerking or reviews
Key Features
Clinical care at night is provided by one or more multidisciplinary teams (with the full range of competencies required to meet immediate patient needs - the team is led by a consultant and a senior nurse)
A focus on competencies rather than grades
Non-medical staff are allocated a proportion of work traditionally done by doctors at night (eg. extending the role of nurses)
A significant proportion of non-urgent work at night being deferred to daytime hours
Multispecialist handovers
Non-urgent bleeps to doctors being filtered by the night matron, with work being allocated to the most appropriate members of the team
