A&E staff at Queen's Hospital ward off patients with minor ailments

Concern has been growing that long waits no longer deter patients from going to A&Es with minor complaints
PA

Large numbers of patients attending one of London’s busiest A&E units were today being told to seek medical help elsewhere.

A pioneering trial scheme at Queen’s hospital in Romford aims to give emergency department medics more time to concentrate on people with “life-threatening illness or injury”.

A one-day trial in May, and a system used during the last junior doctors’ strike, found one in three people attending Queen’s and the A&E at King George in Ilford “do not need to be there”.

Concern has been growing that long waits no longer deter patients from going to A&Es with minor complaints. Many said they came in as they were guaranteed to be seen and “have to wait too long for a GP appointment”.

The trial will run for two weeks and operate between 8am and 8pm. An emergency consultant or GP will be placed at the door of the A&E to decide who should receive treatment.

Mairead McCormick, deputy chief operating officer at Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS trust, which runs Queen’s, said “70 to 80” of the 450 to 550 patients who attend Queen’s each day would be redirected to services such as GP surgeries or pharmacies, or told to look after themselves at home.

She told the Standard: “Any illness or injury that doesn’t require [X-ray or CT scan] imaging and doesn’t require a same-day service will be redirected.”

Children will not be included in the scheme, despite those aged up to four making up the biggest group of Queen’s A&E patients. This is because of the increased safety risk caused by the difficulty of diagnosing illness in children who cannot explain what is wrong.

Bosses will monitor what patients do “when they can’t simply walk into an emergency department and wait to be seen”. The idea could be adopted more widely if it relieves pressure on A&Es.

However, health campaigners fear the initiative is simply a way of masking a shortage of A&E doctors and the failure of Queen’s to hit its waiting-time target.

Campaigner Andy Walker said: “In response to ever-growing numbers of patients coming to A&E, Queen’s will be restricting its full A&E service to children only for two weeks from today. Our NHS is in decline — more funding must be found now.”

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