By stewartb
It would appear the leadership of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) in England has less interest in taking steps to have the BBC report its critical press releases about the Westminster government and NHS England. At least less than their colleagues in Scotland do regarding critical statements about the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland. Or have I got this the wrong way round?
Is it that BBC Scotland is more keen to amplify the RCEM’s critical statements regarding the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland than the BBC elsewhere is to report the RCEM’s critical statements regarding the Westminster government and NHS England?
What follows is an extract from the latest RCEM press release. It takes little imagination to spot the potential for ‘impactful’ headlines to embellish a BBC Scotland piece. Also, one can readily envisage the inclusion in a BBC article of RCEM leader’s quotes plus Gulhane and Baillie’s tuppenceworth if the RCEM was commenting on Scotland here.
Source: RCEM (January 30 2025): ‘New guidance fails to address how ‘national shame’ of corridor care and excessive A&E waits will be tackled – RCEM responds to the government’s ‘mandate for the NHS’ and NHSE planning guidance’
It states: ‘New missives from the Department of Health and NHS England provide little ‘guidance’ as to how the most dangerous and shameful issues facing Emergency Departments – corridor care and excessive pre-admission waits – are going to be tackled.‘ (my emphasis)
‘Responding, RCEM President, Dr Adrian Boyle, said: “Today was a chance for the DHSC and NHSE to really give some guidance about how the national shame of corridor care and long A&E stays before admission will be tackled.”
Adding: “But apart from stating the ambition that ‘a higher proportion of patients admitted, discharged and transferred from ED within 12 hours’, there is little meaningful indication of how this is to be achieved.‘
“Fundamentally corridor care and overcrowding are caused by lack of capacity in, and flow through, our hospitals and we are disappointed to see no meaningful commitments to tackle them.
“All the admission avoidance in the world won’t help an elderly patient waiting on a trolley in a corridor for hours.’
The RCEM’s statement ends with this: ‘Elsewhere is has been reported that 2,000 NHS jobs could be at risk in the drive for efficiency, as well as the implementation of a recruitment freeze.’
A search of the BBC News website found no coverage of this criticism.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
One of the things the RCEM identifies in its statement is ‘flow through’. This is a valid point. If A&E can get patients through more quickly then the issue of patients being looked after in corridors will reduce.
One of the larger categories of those presenting at A&E are elderly people, f which I am one. After a trial at Guy’s Hospital in which a geriatric unit was moved close to A&E and it’s staff were involved when elderly patients arrived and were involved in triage. The patient could either be transferred out of A&E to the geriatric unit or, if the injury presented was not especially severe, the patient could be taken home and treated there. For many elderly people this is more reassuring.
The trial was so effective that NHS England, Scotland and Wales decided to adopt it.
But how did Scottish Labour respond? It ‘slammed’ this procedure as ‘employing bouncers to throw old people out of hospital’.
Labour in England and Wales did not see things that way.
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