A PROJECT to refocus care at the hospital bedside in Gwent is helping cut patients' anxiety, reduce stress for nurses, and create calmer atmospheres on the ward.

Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB) is in many ways a back to basics approach to nursing, being rolled out across Wales.

Under TCAB, all patients are seen and spoken to by a nurse every one-two hours, and a record made on their ward notes there and then, regarding the care administered and what was talked about.

"It sounds like simple stuff and it is, in that it enables nurses to do what we were trained to do in the first place," said Maria Nocivelli, ward sister on D4East at the Royal Gwent.

"With this, documentation is a real time process, and no longer relies on a nurse's ability to recall events some time later when filling in records.

"That benefits patients in that documentation is accurate and precise, and the one-two hourly interventions with the patient means they know they are going to be seen by a nurse regularly. It cuts down anxiety and apprehension.

"Agendas for managing patients on the ward are huge and it had tended to be task-oriented in the way we approached the job. TCAB has brought the focus back to the delivery of quality care, rather than meeting those agendas."

Ann Jones, a TCAB leader within Aneurin Bevan Health Board, said the project targets the ward sister's role and how ward nursing teams are organised.

"It is about managing time and the skills available, to allow ward sisters to better manage those agendas and pressures in terms of things like patient flow, discharge planning, budgets, efficiency," she said.

"Communication is a vital element, bringing nurses, patients and relatives closer together."

TCAB operates on all Royal Gwent wards, is being rolled out in Nevill Hall, and should be introduced across all Gwent hospitals by the end of 2011.