Redirecting patients is not the answer, says new survey
A new study by The College of Emergency Medicine shows that NHS efforts to redirect patients away from busy A&E departments will not work, as the majority of patients need urgent medical care.
The review of more than 3,000 patients over 24 hours across 12 A&E departments revealed that only 15% of patients could have been seen in the community by their GP. NHS figures last year believed that 25% of patients could be seen in the community instead of hospital.
Experts claim that steps need to be taken to relieve pressure, as 85% of patients need to be seen in A&E. One recommendation that is already in place across a few hospitals includes locating GP’s in or alongside A&E units to filter out the less urgent cases. NHS England has also proposed a two-tier system involving major and minor units.
A&E urgency
Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, told BBC News “For many years patients have been wrongly criticised for abusing A&E departments and wasting NHS resources, but these latest figures show that the majority of these patients are genuinely ill and require urgent medical treatment.”
College president Dr Clifford Mann said “The fact that only 15% of attendees at emergency departments could be safely redirected to a primary care clinician without the need for emergency department assessment is a statistic that must be heeded by those who wish to reconfigure services.”
