Just over ten years after the Francis Report revealed the full extent of the appalling systems failure that had taken place when Mid Staffordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust slashed staffing levels and quality of services in a bid to wipe out a £10 million deficit, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine convened a Crisis Summit on Emergency Care in the House of Lords.
RCEM President Dr Adrian Boyle summed up the aim of the gathering as seeking to “build political will to address problems that will take more than an election cycle to fix”.
A large invited audience crammed in to the Attlee Room on March 28 to hear a distinguished panel of speakers including Health Foundation Director of Research Anita Charlesworth, College of Paramedics President John Martin, British Geriatrics Society President Prof Adam Gordon, Society of Acute Medicine President Dr Tim Cooksley, Dr Camilla Kingdon, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and two politicians, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting and LibDem Lords health spokesperson Lord Allan.
The event began with a general introduction, emphasising that 2022 had been the worst year ever for the emergency care system, with one in ten of the most serious Type 1 patients waiting 12 hours or more from their time of arrival to admission, with 60% of 12 hour waits affecting patients aged 60 and above.
Full article in The Lowdown, 31 March 2023