Helping us to help you | James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Helping us to help you

There are many things you can do to help us help you.

This includes everything from making use of the NHS 111 service if you need medical advice, to making sure you don't visit friends and relatives in hospital if you are feeling unwell or have cold, flu, norovirus or coronavirus symptoms.

It can also help us if you are aware of some of the things that you may need to think about when you or a loved one comes into hospital, including choices around CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) and discharge from hospital.

Making the right healthcare choice

Our hospital is often busy and we're asking for your support as we work to ensure patients arriving with us can be seen, treated and given a bed if they need to stay with us.

Please choose health care services wisely. If you don’t know which service you may need or if it’s urgent but not a life-threatening emergency then the NHS 111 service can help. Please call 111 or visit; https://111.nhs.uk/

If a close relative or friend is in hospital please can you support them to leave as soon as they are able to. We recognise this may not always be easy but it is really important that loved ones are collected from hospital as soon as they are ready to leave, either from the Emergency Department or from wards, to free up beds for patients needing emergency care.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)

The nature of healthcare means that, sometimes, difficult conversations have to take place in hospitals between doctor and patient.

In the video here and the questions and answers below, Dr Jim Crawfurd, an Emergency Department Consultant with many years’ experience, answers some of the key questions around Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), a procedure used to attempt to re-start a patient’s heart when it stops beating.

He explains why it is important to have conversations about CPR with patients as early as possible, why the procedure is not suitable for everyone - and seeks to dispel some of the myths surrounding it.

What does CPR involve?

The majority of people’s experience of CPR is seeing actors carry it out in an episode of a medical drama series. Is this a realistic portrayal?

If it is so unpleasant, and has such a poor success rate, why do it at all?

So, how are decisions made about whether or not to use CPR on a patient?

If a patient is told that CPR would not be offered to them but disagree, what can they do?

Do these conversations happen with every patient who is admitted to hospital?

So why is it so important to have these conversations?

Who performs CPR in a hospital?

When a decision is made in advance that a patient will not be resuscitated in the event of cardiac arrest, does this mean that all other active health treatment is then withdrawn?

What happens when a patient loses capacity and can’t have this type of conversation?

Does the Trust have guidelines covering this important area?

Is there anything else you would like to say to patients and public about CPR?

Flu - what you need to know

Flu occurs every winter in the UK and is a key factor in NHS winter pressures. It impacts on those who become ill, the NHS services that provide direct care, and on the wider health and social care system that supports people in at-risk groups.

Flu vaccination is available every year on the NHS to help protect adults and children at risk of flu and its complications.

Please read more below and watch our video with the James Paget's Chief Pharmacist Chris Street.

Flu can be unpleasant

Check if you have flu

If you have flu, there are some things you can do to help get better more quickly