Emergency doctors hit out at NHS guidance on treating patients in corridors
EMERGENCY doctors have expressed concern today about a new guide on how to treat patients in corridors, saying it is “normalising the dangerous.”
NHS England recently produced guidance on “providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces.”
But the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said the “nonsensical” guidance is out of touch and that it is “not possible to provide safe and good quality care” in corridors or cupboards.
The guidance acknowledges corridor care is “not acceptable and should not be considered as standard,” but due to current pressures some hospitals are “using temporary escalation spaces more regularly — and this use is no longer ‘in extremis’.”
It suggests how staff can deliver the “safest, most effective and highest quality care possible” to patients in these circumstances.
In a statement yesterday, the college said: “Advice from arm’s length bodies that appear out of touch with what is happening in our departments was always going to be poorly received.”
The use of corridors will lead to long waits in emergency departments, “associated with measurable harm to patients,” it added.
…
