Admission Avoidance Service

It is a service that is offered at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to help you stay at home while you are been treated for a chest infection with intravenous antibiotics.

We work together with the Hospital at Home Service from Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust.

Your respiratory consultant has referred you to this service because you are unwell and need to receive intravenous antibiotics to manage your infection. However, you are stable enough to be able to receive treatment at home.

Most of the treatments that we give in the admission avoidance service last two weeks, so the main advantage is that while you are being treated you will not need to be admitted to hospital.

You will be able to lead a normal life as much as your condition allows.

The first dose of your treatment will be given in hospital to observe for any possible adverse effects to the medication.

Once you go home nurses from the Hospital at Home service will see you daily to give you your medication. On each visit they will assess you and will be able to follow you through your treatment. You will also be able to get in touch with them should you experience any difficulties.

If at any point of your treatment the nurses consider that you need to be seen or need to be admitted to hospital we will liaise with them and bring you into hospital for review.

For the start of the treatment, you will be asked to come to the Respiratory Clinic (at the second floor of the Barry Building in the Royal Sussex County Hospital). The clinic runs only on Thursdays. You will not need to stay overnight.

First, you will be seen by the OPAT / IV team at Jowers ward (1st floor of the Barry Building) where you will be assessed and will have a line inserted in your arm. If there are any complications with putting this line in, you may need to have a cannula instead.

Secondly, you will be taken to the Respiratory clinic on the 2nd floor where we will do a spirometry test and will give you the first dose of the intravenous antibiotics.

After the line insertion you need to be careful carrying weight on that arm. You will need to bear this in mind as you will be given the two week course of antibiotics to take home and this will be given in a number of carrier bags. You may need to bring someone with you to help.

At the end of your treatment, we will give you another appointment for the Admission Avoidance clinic which takes place on Thursday afternoons from 2.00pm. On this day, you will have a spirometry test and you will be reviewed by one of the members of the medical respiratory team. The doctor will decide whether you can stop antibiotics and have the line removed. If you are still feeling unwell the doctor may extend your antibiotics to an extra week or she/he may want to do further investigations or make changes to your management.

If the decision is made to stop antibiotics, we will be able to remove the line in clinic. If you are still due some doses of antibiotics the Hospital at Home team will be able to remove the line once treatment is fully finished.

If you have any queries or need more information regarding the service, you can contact Emma Rivera, the Respiratory Nurse on 07387 259261.

The information here is for guidance purposes only and is in no way intended to replace professional clinical advice by a qualified practitioner.

This information is intended for patients at Brighton and Haywards Heath.