A new project is helping to reduce the number of people who suffer a cardiac arrest on Wishaw General’s cardiology ward.

The pilot project, which is being carried out in ward 4, has seen a number of new procedures being introduced in a bid to halt a cardiac arrest in its tracks.

The ward aims to reduce the number of cardiac arrests by 50 per cent by June 2016.

Gary Boyle, senior charge nurse, said: “Before someone has a major deterioration , there are very subtle changes in their overall condition. If you can identify these changes and respond to them as they happen, you can often prevent a major deterioration from happening.

“We have introduced new ways to recognise a deteriorating symptom. For example, we introduced monitoring every patients pulse manually instead of relying on machines.

“We have also introduced a standard observation procedure so that all staff check every patient in the same way. If everyone carries out checks in the same way, we can detect more subtle deterioration in patients.”

The team have also introduced new ways to flag up subtle changes in a patient’s condition to nursing and medical colleagues.

Gary added: “When nurses are doing their observations and detect deterioration in the patient’s condition, they take one of our new sticker alerts and place it in the patient’s medical notes. They accompany this with a narrative saying why they have placed the alert in the patient’s notes, what they observed and whether the patient requires a medical review.

“Every time there is a change in the patient’s condition, a new alert is placed in their record. The result is that there is a clear mapping of any deterioration and allows doctors to review their treatment much earlier than they would have been previously.”

The ward aims to reduce the number of cardiac arrests in the ward by 50 per cent by June 2016.