BMJ 1995;310:868 (1 April)

Letters

Bed crises are occurring almost daily in some hospitals

EDITOR,--Richard Hobbs is correct in stating that emergency admissions are increasing.1 The figure shows the trend in acute admissions through the accident and emergency department of a large general hospital. After a period of stability between 1984 and 1991 the number has almost doubled. It has taken a great deal of hard work and managerial flexibility from all doctors in the hospital to help the department cope with this throughput.

A medical admissions ward has been opened, bed managers have been introduced, and the hospital allows emergency admissions into any available bed regardless of specialty; a surgical directorate even funded an increase in medical beds during the winter to enable continued elective surgical activity. Despite these measures, however, bed crises occur almost daily and staff find themselves on the seemingly endless treadmill of processing these large numbers of admissions. The reasons for the increase are many, but we think that . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

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

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Gonnah, R, Hegazi, M O, Hmdy, I, Shenoda, M M M (2008). Can a change in policy reduce emergency hospital admissions? Effect of admission avoidance team, guideline implementation and maximising the observation unit. Emerg. Med. J. 25: 575-578 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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