Comment on urgent and emergency care review

Commenting on Sir Bruce Keogh’s proposals for urgent and emergency care across England, Professor Norman Williams, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, said:

‘The current structures for dealing with emergency patients need urgent modernisation. Accident and Emergency departments are under increasing pressure, and it is imperative that doctors work in partnership to help end the situation where patients are inappropriately admitted. Innovative and sustainable solutions must be found, so that urgent cases can be dealt with and treated as soon as possible in the right place.

‘The blueprint for urgent and emergency care is a step in the right direction with non-life-threatening conditions treated outside the hospital, and Accident and Emergency units that will look to provide the best clinical teams, expertise and equipment for patients with serious or life threatening conditions. Services need to be easily accessible for patients, and we must be confident in the knowledge that transportation will meet demand. Changing the shape of services is inevitable; what matters is not where, but how you are treated. The surgical profession will do all it can to help solve this overwhelming problem.’