DIGNITY IN DISTRESS: MANAGING AND MOVING OBESE PEOPLE BY WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP

摘要

As the population gets heavier, there is a need for hospitals and emergency services to establish plans to work together to cope with obese patients, while maintaining their dignity and privacy. This paper will endeavour to explain the processes involved in improving patient safety and establishing a safe solution to the difficulties arising from the moving and handling of bariatric individuals from community care to acute care in the event of a hospital appointment or emergency admission, and back to community care on discharge. It will also explain how the group convinced Chief Executives from the county of the importance to sign up to work together and share equipment with other emergency services to provide more integrated care.rnBariatric: for the purposes of this paper a Bariatric person is defined as someone whose weight is over 19 stone - 120 Kg or has a Body Mass Index of greater than 30.