Collaboration with Gary Jones CBE – February 26

We are pleased to announce that Sort-ED Partnership has a new collaboration with Emergency Medicine’s Nursing pioneer Gary Jones, who has joined our advisory panel. Gary led the development of the Jones Dependency Tool – a measure of nurse workload.

Sadly these methods are labour intensive to perform. Extending and adapting a new method – fueled by SortED’s rapid and comprehensive data collection at initial patient assessment – should allow a Patient Dependency estimate for A&E attendees on arrival.

The workload for nurses depends on more factors than acuity score (priority) and clinical condition. The skill-mix of the workforce has also evolved since Gary and colleagues were assessing nurse workload for the JDT (1990 – 2006). Whilst SortED aims to save the nurses responsible for initial assessments significant documentation time, this new initiative should provide valuable information to ED managers who have to orchestrate nurse deployment.

Gary is also great fun to work with, and a very knowledgeable expert – and author – on both nurse training for Emergency Medicine and the history of Emergency Nursing. His introductions to key members of the nursing profession have been invaluable in extending the ‘reach’ of our research group beyond the two NHS Trusts where our research began.

Gillie Francis – February 2026