Figures have been revealed which show how the Ambulatory Care Unit at the Royal Bolton Hospital is relieving the pressures off A&E services.

The data shows the number of referrals at Bolton's Ambulatory Care Unit and the percentage of people who were discharged on the same day.

In the last six months, Royal Bolton Hospital's Ambulatory Care Unit has seen a total of 1,330 patients and 74 per cent were discharged on the same day.

Donna Williamson, advanced nurse practitioner of the general Surgery, at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust said her team are really proud of the impact they are making to relieve the pressures off the A&E department.

She said: “As a team we are really proud of the impact we have had on both the patient experience and the support we offer to reduce pressures within A&E by supporting flow throughout the organisation.

"We are continuing to improve and streamlining our processes and we regularly review the effectiveness of our service.

"A&E are currently seeing extremely high numbers of patients and we are keen to help our colleagues in and improve A&E wait times by working together to provide better patient care.

"Current audit figures reflect that in just over one month, we were able to help 73 patients by moving them from A&E and we were able to discharge 82% of the patients we’ve seen home in the same day.”

Laura Anton, operational business manager for surgery, said the team are doing everything they can to provide 'seamless care'.

She said: "I’m so proud of the surgical ACU team for constantly thinking about ways to change the way they’re working to benefit our patients.

“We’re really keen to understand whether we’re making a difference to our frontline colleagues and how else we could improve our surgical pathways from an urgent care perspective.

“At the end of the day, we’re all working towards the same thing – seamless care for our patients.”

Through a series of tweets, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust shared the vital roles the hospital's dedicated team of advance nurse practioners from the anaesthetics and surgical division complete daily.

This team has been helping to relieve pressure in A&E by proactively reaching in to the emergency department and also by recieving referrals from GPs to identify patients who could be assessed and treated by them.

The work this team is completing often results in patients waiting for less time to be treated and effectively they are being discharged on the same day.

Preventing unnecessary admissions and freeing up space in the emergency department waiting room for people who need it the most.