BMJ 1995;310:867 (1 April)

Letters

Rising emergency admissions

Managing emergency admissions is no longer the first priority

EDITOR,--Further to Richard Hobbs's editorial on the increasing numbers of emergency medical admissions,1 I write to highlight another problem associated with the delivery of acute services. The white paper Working for Patients clearly stated that "emergency treatment should be available immediately and without question."2 It is self evident that managing emergency conditions should be the first priority of any system of health care, but I contend that the changes resulting from the white paper mean that this is no longer the case.

The demands made on the NHS have always exceeded the available resources. As a consequence, emergency care has been the first priority of the service and patients with less urgent conditions have had to wait for outpatient appointments and operations. The changes brought about by the white paper have made the money to fund many elective surgical procedures directly . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Rising emergency admissions
Richard Hobbs
BMJ 1995 310: 207-208. [Extract] [Full Text]

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