Memorandum by British Association for
Emergency Medicine (GP28)
The British Association for Emergency Medicine
have grave concerns about the GP out of hours services. The impact
on Emergency Departments could be very serious and may well affect
us achieving our four hour target times unless the re-provision
of out of hours services is handled swiftly. The view from our
members across the country is that the provision of GP out of
hours services is patchy and may be inadequate to cope with the
numbers of primary care attenders. Many Departments, including
the one in which I work at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, are
seeing an increased number of attendances and the worry is that
this is due to patients' perceptions that GP out-of-hours does
not now occur and that to obtain urgent health care, patients
should visit the Emergency Department.
May 2004
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