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Provision of trauma teams in Scotland: a national survey
  1. J Hornsby1,
  2. T Quasim1,
  3. N Dignon2,
  4. A Puxty1
  1. 1Department of Anaesthetics, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, UK
  2. 2Department of Emergency Medicine, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr A Puxty, Department of Anaesthetics, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Alexandra Parade, Glasgow G2 0SF, UK; apuxty{at}doctors.org.uk

Abstract

Background and aims Trauma is still the leading cause of mortality in the first four decades of life. Despite numerous reports on how trauma care could be improved in the UK, treatment has been shown to be inconsistent and of poor quality. Trauma teams have been shown to have a positive effect on outcome. A study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of trauma teams in Scotland.

Methods A telephone survey was performed of 24 hospitals with emergency departments in which the senior clinician was interviewed regarding the provision of trauma teams.

Results Five (21%) of the hospitals questioned had trauma teams. The most common reasons for not having one were no problem with the current system in eight cases (44%) and an inability to include sufficiently senior staff on the team in six cases (24%).

Conclusions There are few trauma teams in Scottish acute hospitals. There was little enthusiasm for introducing them for a variety of reasons. Local evidence of benefit is probably needed before their adoption becomes widespread.

  • Patient care team
  • emergency service, hospital
  • trauma centres
  • Scotland
  • traumatology
  • emergency care systems
  • trauma

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Footnotes

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  • Competing interests None.

  • fn-2
  • Patient consent Obtained.

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  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.