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Editorial
The emergency medicine taskforce: an interim report
  1. Geoffrey Hughes
  1. Correspondence to Professor Geoffrey Hughes, Emergency Department, Royal Adelaide Hospital, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia; cchdhb{at}yahoo.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2012-202260

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    Speak it loudly and speak it clearly: the specialty of Emergency Medicine (EM) in the UK has a medical staffing crisis. The problem has been high on the College's agenda for about 18 months, and it has done well in bringing it to the attention of the other medical colleges and to the civil servants in Whitehall. An Emergency Medicine Taskforce, set up at the end of 2011, released an interim report at the end of last year.1 It is wide ranging in its recommendations. Although we only highlight some key messages here, we believe that the report needs to be read carefully; it has some serious and game changing recommendations in it.

    • Waiting for a natural solution to the problem is no longer an option; emergency departments (EDs), in partnership with the medical training and education system, will have to actively seek alternative staffing and training solutions

    • Fundamental changes in training, support and supervision, working conditions and long-term career pathways are needed to ensure that EM is made attractive and sustainable to trainees in …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.