If you have been referred to the Same Day Emergency Care Centre (SDEC), the attached leaflet provides more information for you to understand the service.
What is SDEC (Same Day Emergency Care)?
SDEC is the provision of Same Day Emergency Care for patients who would have otherwise been admitted to hospital
Under this care model, patients presenting to hospital with a range of conditions can be rapidly assessed, diagnosed, and treated without needing a hospital admission. If clinically safe to do so, patients will be discharged home the same day.
Warrington Hospital runs a joint medical and surgical SDEC unit.
What will happen during your visit?
If you have been referred to the SDEC Centre by your GP or the Emergency Department team.
- On arrival, please go directly to the SDEC Centre where you will be booked in by the reception team
- You will be triaged (observations checked) by the triage nurse and any initial investigations such as blood tests, ECGs will be taken
- You will be seen by a member of the medical or surgical team and any further tests or investigations will be arranged
- Once your results are available (sometimes this can take several hours) and a diagnosis is made, your treatment will be started
- Some treatments can take several hours to complete, others are quicker
- You may be in the department for several hours in total depending on the investigations and treatment you require
Discharge From SDEC
The majority of patients will not require a hospital admission. Once your stay in SDEC is completed, you will be discharged home if it is clinically safe to do so. If you require a hospital admission, you will be transferred to an inpatient bed within the hospital.
Follow Up
- You may be discharged home with a follow up in the SDEC Review Clinic (see section 5 for more details)
- You may be discharged home with a follow up appointment with a specialty clinic e.g., cardiology, respiratory, gastroenterology
- You may be discharged with a follow up with your GP
- You may be discharged home without any follow up
SDEC Review Clinic
- SDEC Review clinic is run within the SDEC Centre.
- Patients will be booked into the clinic by the medical or surgical teams and given an appointment letter with the date and time of the appointment.
- The purpose of the clinic is to provide an early medical review (within a few days) following discharge from hospital.
- Often this review will involve further investigations to assess your progress since discharge, including blood tests and radiology.
- Your appointment could take several hours to complete if you require further investigations or treatment.
- Rarely, you may need to be readmitted to hospital if you are unwell.