As many of
you know, I’ve been banging on for some time for another 6 more consultants at
St Peter’s A and E, to take the number up to 10.
You probably
won’t be impressed to hear that I worked this out based on my own calculations
of how many consultants you would need to cover three 8 hour shifts with
overlaps for busy periods but allowing for holidays, sickness, further
education and doing operations. That’s how I came up with 10 – it was common
sense. Clearly, the current 4 won’t do.
All the same
I never had much hope that my calculations would influence anyone at the
hospital. So it came as some relief when I came on this government report;
“The demands
on an EM Consultant are unrelenting, with a constant stream of decision making
for high-risk patients presenting with critical illness, serious injury or with
the potential for high morbidity and mortality, generally overlaid with
additional Departmental management responsibilities.
In order to
ensure patient safety, this decision dense activity is only safely sustainable
for a limited number of hours. This is important when considering the total
number of Emergency Medicine Consultants required in an ED, accepting that
these Consultants will be working a shift pattern.
The College
of Emergency Medicine has recommended a minimum of 10 whole time equivalent EM
Consultants for each ED. This number is designed to provide up to 16 hours a
day EM Consultant presence 7 days a week. Increased EM Consultant numbers will
ensure improved work/life balance prospects for the trainees, enhanced
protected training time and better supervision as well as an improvement in
mortality and morbidity rates in and out of hours (OOHs).”
Emergency Medicine
Taskforce Interim report. 2012.
Couldn’t
have put it better myself.
Eh, GIMME 10!
(a don’t
stop till you drop production)
neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
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