BMJ  2006;332:610 (11 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7541.610-b

Letter

"That's all I got handed over"

Views from a teaching hospital

EDITOR—Sithamparanathan makes valid points about problems with handovers.¹ During the past three months a formal handover process has been instituted at this hospital.

The bed manager, site coordinator, and clinical support workers are present at the handover. This helps with knowledge of bed availability at the beginning of a shift and the site coordinator may sometimes be aware of potential problems in the accident and emergency department or the wards even before the doctors are.

All handovers are registrar led. This ensures that everything is handed over to the incoming team rather than to individuals, and work can be distributed appropriately.

The time allocated for handover has been widely advertised on all wards and on the hospital intranet. This has helped to some extent in achieving a bleep-free period for handover.

Our dedicated handover room has computer facilities where patients' lists can be generated and results checked quickly.

Despite all planning measures, however, we have found that the key to successful handovers is flexibility as you may find yourself having to take handover in resuscitation departments in accident and emergency wards or even in high dependency units.

Hope Hospital, Manchester M6 8HD safai{at}hotmail.com

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Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Sithamparanathan M. "That's all I got handed over." BMJ 2006;332: 496. (25 February.)[Free Full Text]

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"That's all I got handed over"

Myooran Sithamparanathan
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