PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - J Navein AU - I McNeil TI - The Surrey Emergency Care System: a countywide initiative for change AID - 10.1136/emj.20.2.192 DP - 2003 Mar 01 TA - Emergency Medicine Journal PG - 192--195 VI - 20 IP - 2 4099 - http://emj.bmj.com/content/20/2/192.short 4100 - http://emj.bmj.com/content/20/2/192.full SO - Emerg Med J2003 Mar 01; 20 AB - Modernisation is at the core of government policy. Within the NHS it has variously focused on accident and emergency, coronary heart disease, clinical governance and information technology although each strand has tended to operate in isolation. The Surrey Emergency Care System is a programme combining the strands into a single countywide initiative and that lays the technical and clinical foundations of a future integrated unscheduled care network. This paper describes the programme, its potential impact, and offers some insight into the barriers to change that the project has met so far.