New alcohol detox service a first at Rochdale Infirmary

Staff nurse Rachel Whyte; Amanda Tang, service manager ADS; Angela Fetherston and Pat Staunton, ADS community detox nurse/hospital to home detox nurses and Anne Livesey, alcohol practitioner at UCC

A specialist service at Rochdale Infirmary has been set up to help patients who are recognised as having an alcohol dependency.

Recent figures from Alcohol Concern show that more than half a million people a year are being admitted to hospitals within the Greater Manchester area with alcohol related problems, with 51,782 of these at Rochdale in 2010/11.

The new ‘hospital to home detox’ service has been launched at the Infirmary’s clinical assessment unit (CAU), in partnership with Rochdale Borough’s community alcohol team - Addiction Dependency Solutions (ADS). So far, six patients have successfully completed their detoxes.

Open to patients over 18 years of age and from Rochdale, Middleton and Heywood, it is hoped that this service will give them a positive and supportive start on their journey to recovery.

Anne Livesey, alcohol practitioner, has developed the service with staff nurse Rachel Whyte from the CAU. She said: “To qualify to go on this programme, patients have to have been admitted to the CAU who are alcohol dependant or who require medical management of alcohol withdrawal. With their consent, they are assessed and put on an alcohol withdrawal integrated care pathway, and once they have stabilized they have the option of going on the hospital to home detox, if this is a suitable alternative for them.”

As well as freeing up hospital beds, patients also benefit as they are nursed in their own home by community detox nurses who visit them to monitor and supervise their medical regime, monitor clinical withdrawals and carry out nursing observations.

Patients are free to stop the detox plan at any time and post discharge one-to-one counselling is available at the Rochdale Infirmary’s Urgent Care Centre (UCC).

Sister Lou Harkness-Hudson, manager of the CAU, said: “The new hospital to home detox programme is a very welcome service which we have introduced, as it is estimated that 1 in 26 occupied beds in an acute Trust are alcohol related. This places a considerable financial burden on the NHS, particularly for those needing treatment in a hospital setting. Nationally 13 to 20% of all hospital admissions are alcohol-related, rising to 35% of all A&E attendances.”

The definition of an alcohol related hospital admission includes any admission to hospital which is documented as being wholly (such as alcoholic liver disease) or partially attributable (such as accidental injury). When someone is drinking heavily and /or regularly, alcohol withdrawal symptoms may occur when they stop drinking. Physical symptoms can range from mild to life threatening.