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06-12-2006 Back to news index
Proposed changes to emergency care: clinical directors' reports, PM's speech and reactions
Two of the top clinicians in the country have published reports on the need to change how emergency care and heart and stroke services are delivered to ensure that patients get the best care in the right place.
Sir George Alberti, National Clinical Director for Emergency Care and Professor Roger Boyle, National Clinical Director for Heart Disease and Stroke, both argue that traditional A&E departments are not the only option when dealing with life and death situations. The reports also include personal accounts of the recent service changes and improvements to patient care that they have seen in their own areas of expertise and that are already making a difference for patients.
These DH publications coincide with the announcement of a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) which suggests that campaigns to save services currently provided in district general hospitals could lead to more than 1,000 unnecessary deaths each year. The report itself will be published later this month.
Also of relevance is a speech given by Tony Blair to the NHS Confederation on the subject of NHS reform. A video of the speech is available on the BBC Health website and the transcript is on the PM's website. We also link the BMA's reaction.
Lastly ahighly challenging personal view, just published by the NHS Confederation, of how we think of hospitals:"It is not grouping patients that provides the therapeutic gain of expert care – it is grouping and managing the skill sets of the staff. Community psychiatric nursing teams do not try to get all their patients living in the same street."
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BBC report on PM's speech, including video clip (external link)
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Transcript of PM's speech (external link)
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The future of acute care by Andy Black (PDF, 498KB)