Delivering safe care a challenge in Scotland’s A&Es, doctor warns

Dr John Paul Loughrey, vice president for Scotland of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told BBC Scotland News that the Scottish government’s plans for the NHS this winter would not improve the experience of staff or patients.

He accused the Scottish government of “continuing to disregard” the urgent need to keep patients moving through the hospital system to stop them getting stuck in A&E.

“We are seeing lots of discussion, but we haven’t seen any useful measures so far that will make it any better for people working in A&Es this winter,” he said.

He said there had been no opportunity for A&E departments to “reset” over the summer as they would have traditionally, and that it continued to be a very challenging environment – with fears it would get even worse over the winter.

Dr Loughrey added that every day recently had been like “the winter crisis of winters before, but every day”.

“Sometimes giving safe care can be a challenge in every A&E in Scotland,” he said.

He highlighted that one of the big issues in the emergency department was moving patients out of A&E into specialist beds elsewhere in the hospital.

This, he said, meant it was difficult to treat new patients arriving at A&E – leading to queues of ambulances outside and patients sometimes left in corridors which he said was “inhumane”.