The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has collated information and guidance on the Emergency Department workforce. In this section you will find resources for service delivery, recommendations on expanding the consultant workforce, medical and practitioner workforce guidance and relevant toolkits.
* Please note that the references to Consultant staffing in the remainder of the historic RCEM guidance has been superseded by the above publication. *
Below are our workforce guidance tools and resources. Please note that any content relevant to PAs has been superseded by our College position.
The following resources are designed to provide guidance around locum posts:
As part of the wider workforce strategy launched by The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) in 2017, its recommendations for the requirements for appointment to the post of Locum Consultant in Emergency Medicine have been reviewed and updated. The chief reasons for this action are to ensure safety for patients and maintenance of training standards for trainees in Emergency Medicine who might be supervised by individuals in such posts.
We would strongly suggest that, in trusts where individuals who do not comply with this guidance are employed in the role of Locum Consultant in Emergency Medicine, the posts should be reviewed by the Clinical Director, Medical Director and Human Resources Lead. Consideration should be given to the title and grading of the posts so as to reflect the fact that the RCEM requirements have not been met.
The RCEM workforce strategy supports and promotes the development of alternative training routes in Emergency Medicine such as the CESR pathways. This enables the development of doctors who aspire to meet the criteria for appointment as a locum or substantive Consultant in Emergency Medicine whilst expanding the senior workforce in a safe and quality-assured manner.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) believes that there is a role for the grade of associate specialist. It is important for the maintenance of senior cover within emergency departments and the College believes that it will assist in the retention of senior doctors within the specialty. As such, RCEM strongly supports the principle of its reinstatement in a similar form as before or as an alternatively named grade of senior specialist.
Find below the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s RCEM Workforce Recommendations 2018: Consultant Staffing in Emergency Departments in the UK:
RCEM Workforce Recommendations 2018: Consultant Staffing in Emergency Departments in the UK (revised Feb 2019)
* Please note that the references to Consultant staffing in the remainder of the historic RCEM guidance has been superseded by the above publication. *
The most comprehensive and focused review into the benefits to patients of consultant delivered medical care has been published by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC). The review was commissioned by the Academy and carried out by a Steering Group led by Professor Terrence Stephenson (Academy Vice-Chair and President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health). The review’s Steering Group called for written and oral evidence from professional organisations and individuals. It also commissioned an independent and systematic review of existing literature on the subject which identified over 70 relevant studies published between 1992 and 2011 (although much was from the last 3 years).
On the basis of the best evidence available, the Academy concluded that medical care delivered by fully trained consultant doctors has demonstrable benefits in terms of:
This report is not suggesting that it should only be consultants who deliver medical or clinical care. The Academy and Medical Royal Colleges fully recognise and support the principle that successful care depends on a team based approach where a range of healthcare staff contribute to the delivery of a successful outcome.
The principal focus is to inform Acute Trusts, SHAs, commissioners et al of the urgent need to expand Emergency Medicine (EM) Consultant numbers and highlight the wide-ranging benefits.
The evidence quoted provides compelling support for the investment required and the dividends resulting – including patient safety, quality of care, productivity and crucially in the present financial climate, the affordability agenda from bed days saved, focused use of diagnostics (particularly imaging) and the expensive legal consequences of unsafe discharges. The current number of EM Consultants is woefully inadequate and the comparison with other specialties is telling.
The principles and messages are applicable throughout the UK and ROI, although the data and evidence used in this initial version are mostly from England. This is an organic document and will continue to be refined. In this regard we would very much welcome your comments and any local evidence available describing the impact of increasing EM Consultant numbers, particularly cost benefits.
This tool has been developed by the RCN Emergency Care Association (ECA) and Faculty of Emergency Nursing (FEN). As EDs are constantly evolving and new ways of delivering care emerge the tool will be revised annually to ensure it has taken account of such changes. The 2013 review showed a strong correlation between BEST outputs on workload and locally held data sets on attendance. The review also showed the importance of users understanding the assumptions made by the tool about the care delivery process, particularly nurse to patient ratios, this is explained below and in the user guide. It is important therefore that you understand what to tool does and any potential difficulties with using it in your department. ECA members can contact the ECA for support prior to using the tool.
BEST is a workforce planning tool for use at local level in your Emergency Department (ED) to allow any disparity between nursing workload and staffing to be highlighted. The tool allows you to:
The tool does not produce recommended staffing levels but will allow EDs to work locally to reduce any disparity between workload and staffing. This can be achieved for example by improving patients pathways, departmental and hospital processes, roster designs and actual staffing.
The BEST calculation requires data to be collected and input for a seven-day period on an hour-by-hour basis. A user guide is provided below, together with the various data collection appendices to explain how to gather your data, how to enter it and what the results portray.
It is important to pay particular attention to the definitions and instructions relating to:
Every ED is different and it is important that your results are used by the people who know most about your ED, you. BEST is not designed to define a minimum staffing number or to compare organisations to each other.
The calculations work by using nurse-to-patient ratios in the various dependency categories.
It is important that these ratios reflect how care is actually delivered in your department, if they do not then the outputs from the tool will not be accurate.
The ratios used by BEST are:
The hourly data sets used by BEST are:
For help and advice or to offer feedback please email eca@rcn.org.uk
EDs across the UK are facing considerable service pressures relating to workforce and activity. The College has published a toolkit with the aim of providing assistance to Emergency Medicine clinicians and Departments by listing in one place existing resources together with a description of new developments that we hope will help to address these pressures. It also provides an update on College work to support Emergency Departments and focus attention on finding solutions to the workforce challenges.
This is not a complete resource – where there are blanks the College is working hard to identify or develop resources/guidance, and we are grateful for all the suggestions and good practice examples provided by Fellows and Members to date. If you are aware of existing resources or new initiatives that could appear in this document please email quality@rcem.ac.uk. The document will be updated and re-issued throughout the next year.
Download the Service Delivery and Workforce toolkit.
Information about delivering quality care and quality improvement, alongside the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's Clinical Audit resources and reports.
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Ensure you are up to date with the latest Clinical Guidelines, which impact you and your patients by clicking the link below.
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Creating successful, satisfying and sustainable careers in Emergency Medicine
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