Thursday 22 May 2014

The real truth about those 'timewasting' patients attending Accident and Emergency.


This is from the Guardian today, 22/5/14 and it’s based on a survey by The College of Emergency Medicine. As you probably know, I’m a big fan of their work.

I’m a big fan of this, because it confirms articles I’ve written before which have used evidence to show that people at Accident and Emergency departments are not ‘time wasters’, attending with minor ailments.

I’d go further; the small number of attendances that could have been dealt with at a G.P.’s surgery – how were the patients to know before they learnt what the problem was at A and E?

The arguments that patients were time wasters came from administrators and politicians who were trying to deflect blame away from themselves for underproviding A and E capacity.

And some lazy bad Doctors.

Have you tried attending an A and E recently?

College of Emergency medicine says only one in seven cases at emergency departments are non-urgent

 

 

  theguardian.com, Thursday 22 May 2014 06.57 BST    

 

One in seven people who attend A&E could be dealt with by a GP but the rest are justified in going to an NHS emergency department, new research suggests.

 

 

The College of Emergency Medicine found that 15% of people who attended A&E departments could be treated in the community rather than as an emergency case in hospital.

 

 

"[But] 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," said Dr Clifford Mann, president of the college.

 

The figure equated to 2.1 million patients who come through the doors of emergency departments every year, the college spokesman said. Children with minor illnesses were among them.

 

The finding prompted the college to renew its calls for the establishment of GP centres within emergency departments.

 

The college argues that emergency health services are facing a shortage inspecialist doctors, rising numbers of people attending centres and a lack of accessible and effective alternatives to A&E.

 

"Providing a more appropriate resource for the 2.1 million patients represented by this figure would substantially decongest emergency departments," said Mann.

 

"Decongesting emergency departments is key to relieving the unprecedented levels of pressure placed upon them and improving patient care."

 

Seperately, Sky News said a freedom of information request had revealed that hundreds of thousands of patients were being sent home from hospital in the middle of the night, despite a promise to cut down on the practice.

 

 

More than 300,000 people had been discharged from hospitals between 11pm and 6am since 2012, an average of 400 a night. Many of them were elderly, giving rise to concerns that vulnerable people may be unsafe or struggle to get home at unsociable hours.

 

 

The figures, uncovered through Freedom of Information requests by Sky News, revealed that in almost half of cases the proportion of patients discharged overnight also increased.

 

 

The NHS has in the past been accused of persisting in the widespread practice to help free up beds for other patients.

 

 

In 2012 Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England's medical director, called on hospitals to reduce the number of patients being discharged overnight. "It is simply not fair to be sending people home late at night. We will look at this."

 

Dr Mike Smith, chairman of the Patients Association, told Sky News: "They have got people in A&E chomping at the bit, lying in corridors, they have got to be admitted and they have no beds.

"It's for the convenience of staff and the person they are admitting but at the gross detriment to the person they are chucking out."

 

A spokesman for NHS England told Sky News: "Discharging patients at night without appropriate support is unacceptable, particularly if a patient is vulnerable."

Jamie Reed MP, Labour's shadow health minister, criticised the prevalence of the issue. "Hospitals are operating above safe levels. Ministers promised to put an end to this practice two years ago but it's getting worse. It's further proof you can't trust the Tories with the NHS."

What all this shows is that all those 'clever' managers who shut wards, closed hospitals, merged and shut Accident and Emergency Departments were just creating more and more problems.
Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

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