A&E, Only With An Appointment

Strict new rules to keep crowds down and help save lives

- Lucy Johnston

Patients will only be treated at A&E if they have a referral or arrive in an ambulance, under new plans being considered by the Government.

The proposals are being brought forward by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine to help break hospital coronavirus transmissions.

The plans have been sent to NHS England and will also go to key ministers next week.

The college is concerned that “people will die” if A&E departments “return to the existing model” due to the overcrowding of hospitals.

Under the new plans, designed to reduce the risk of transmission, emergency patients will no longer be able to turn up at A&E unless they have a referral from a GP, NHS 111 or they are brought in by ambulance.

However, the college says there will still be allowance for discretionary “life and death” cases where this rule can be broken.

In a second part of its plan, “hot clinics” will be set up for patients who are referred with less time-critical complaints, such as severe headaches requiring a scan.

These important and urgent but “non-emergency” patients would be separated from the emergency department.

The third measure would increase the number of clinicians taking NHS 111 calls.

The calls have been shown to increase appropriate and timely referrals as well as reduce unnecessary ambulance call-outs.

Dr. Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “Going back to how we used to operate is not an option – patients will die if we do.

“It was just four months ago when we were seeing overcrowding on a record scale in emergency departments. It was unacceptable then and put lives at risk.