Responding to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) report “Bracing for Winter”, Dr Ian Higginson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “This new report from the RCN, called “Bracing for Winter” has some horrifying – but sadly unsurprising – statistics. We are glad to see that the RCN is highlighting the stress that A&E teams are under, and we agree that urgent action needs to be taken.
“This report throws light on many vital issues in hospitals, which needs to be dealt with by the government urgently.
“The RCN report also shows how dangerous it is to have patients waiting for long periods. RCEM has highlighted for some time the scale of corridor care happening across the UK. It is vital that we work together with the government to tackle it. Unfortunately there is currently no meaningful plan as to how we will get out of this mess.
“Our staff do an amazing job in very difficult circumstances, but corridor care affects their own mental health and put patients’ lives at risk. We want to protect our staff from burnout, as well as protect patients.
“We need to ensure that patients are being helped out of Emergency Departments and onto wards for treatment quickly and safely. To do this, we need bed occupancy to be brought down to safe levels so that we have beds available for those who need them. This can be achieved by getting hospitals working more effectively, and by increasing the number of staffed beds.
“We can also do this by tackling delayed discharge so that the patients who are medically fit to go home are able to do so. This ensures we do not lose countless bed days to patients who no longer need to be in hospital.
“This flow of patients out of EDs and onto wards will reduce the pressure and overcrowding experienced in Emergency Departments.
“We are glad that the RCN has highlighted these dangers in their report, and we join them in urging the government to make the urgent changes needed to keep our patients safe over winter.”