GP chief’s A&E plea

A GP representative has called for the number of Accident and Emergency consultants in the UK to be doubled to ensure patient safety.

Dr Kailash Chand, British Medical Association spokesman for the North-West, said he believed more emergency medicine specialists were needed to improve patient care.

His comments come days after the Chronicle reported on six-hour waits at the Royal Oldham Hospital A&E department on Monday. Patients counted up to nine ambulances waiting outside the department as staff struggled to cope with demand.

The College of Emergency Medicine requested the Government to urgently address serious workforce shortages and recommended that emergency medicine consultant posts be increased from 740 to 1,500 by 2012.

Dr Chand said: “The introduction of more senior posts would ensure that fewer patients were incorrectly discharged, unnecessarily admitted or kept waiting for unacceptable periods of time.

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“Emergency departments are the only consistent, reliable and always available source of emergency care and they need to be staffed appropriately.”

Dr Chand also said Government funding should be directed towards facilities that were proven and popular with patients.

He said: “The Government needs to invest in healthcare facilities that are proven and popular with patients such as emergency departments and out-of-hours primary care services, rather than new and as yet unproven urgent care centres and polyclinics.

“Proper staffing of the emergency departments is the single most important factor in providing a high quality service to patients.”