Service can't cope with troughs in demand, let alone peaks

BMJ 1996;312:1476 (8 June)

Letters

Service can't cope with troughs in demand, let alone peaks

EDITOR,--David Ryan correctly points out that "moving criticallyill patients between hospitals has become a far from ideal wayof life."¹ Politicians have only recently taken note of this,but in fact this situation has existed for as long as I havebeen a consultant (11 years) working in an intensive care unitin a large teaching hospital.

Recent deaths of critically ill patients who were being movedbetween hospitals and the media publicity that followed stimulatedthe health secretary into a typical knee jerk reaction.² Thefact that more use will be made of high dependency beds andthat a national database of intensive care unit beds will beset up are two such announcements that Stephen Dorrell has madein the House of Commons. Either Mr Dorrell has been misinformedor, as a typical politician, he chooses to ignore the glaringfacts that (a) the high dependency unit . . . [Full text of this article]