Seven days in medicine: 26 Feb to 3 Mar 2020
BMJ 2020; 368 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m826 (Published 05 March 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;368:m826
Emergency medicine
Royal college launches campaign to end “corridor care”
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine began a campaign to improve UK emergency departments, as data showed that over 100 000 patients had waited for over 12 hours in emergency departments since the start of winter. Katherine Henderson, the college’s president, said, “We must not forget the real human stories behind these numbers. Many of these patients may have received life changing news while stuck on a trolley in a rundown corridor. This is morally wrong.” The campaign calls for performance standards to be a hospital-wide priority and not just a problem for emergency departments.
Drug deaths
Summit ends with no agreement
Two days of talks in Glasgow demonstrated that UK politicians were as far apart as ever in developing a shared approach to tackling record numbers of drug related deaths. Activists campaigning for better services for drug users expressed anger that a UK summit had ended with no action—only promises of further talks. Drug related deaths are at an all time high in Britain: in 2018 some 2917 deaths were recorded in England and Wales and 1187 in Scotland. The Scottish death rate from drugs is now the highest in Europe and on a par with the US.
Patient data
People want to know how their data are used
The UK public supports third parties using NHS health data only when this benefits patients, such as by improving disease detection or developing new treatments, rather than bringing financial gain for the NHS, showed a …
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