Doctors and the Scottish Government are working on a wide-reaching emergency care action plan.
The plan comes as the health service experiences a tough winter across Scotland’s A&E departments due to higher levels of flu, norovirus and respiratory illness resulting in NHS Boards reporting a rise in the level of medical admissions.
The plan will see an extra £1m invested over the next year to increasing the number of consultants working in Scotland’s A&E departments. The numbers of the consultants have increased from 76 (wte) in September 2006 to 144 (wte) in September 2012. This additional level of investment will provide extra help on top of existing board plans.
Health Secretary Alex Neil said: “Our improvement work shows that the faster a patient is seen by a senior consultant the fewer delays they experience during their stay in hospital. Our recent day of care audits show that, with improvements in the access to decision making and community support, up to 25 per cent of patients could spend less time in hospital.
“That is why the first task of our action plan is to increase the number of A&E consultants working in our hospitals. We have already seen an increase in these specialists but our extra £1 million investment will see this process speeded up.”
