Acute medicine and general practice: A key interface in managing emergency care pressures

摘要

Scarcely a day goes by without a news report highlighting the pressures faced by the health service in delivering emergency care. Inevitably the spotlight usually falls on the emergency department (ED), where the '4-hour target' has ensured that data on waiting times have been reliably and accurately collected in hospitals across the UK fora number of years. The rising number of patients spending prolonged periods in the ED prior to discharge or transfer to another area of the hospital provides clear evidence of a service under increasing strain; however while the ED may be the best place to measure this pressure, many of the solutions to this lie elsewhere. Focusing solely on the 'symptom' in the ED is akin to treating chest pain with morphine: resolving the problem requires that we also identify and treat the cause.