Royal College of Emergency Medicine CARES: The next phase (November 2021)

Summary

This document outlines the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s (RCEM) systemwide plan to improve patient care. The RCEM CARES campaign addresses pressing issues facing emergency departments (EDs) so that staff can deliver safe and timely care for patients. The campaign focuses on five key areas: Crowding, Access, Retention, Experience, and Safety.

Content

The report makes recommendations to address issues in the five areas covered by the CARES campaign. It highlights that overcrowding and challenging working conditions can result in an environment where errors are more likely to happen and makes the following recommendations to improve patient safety.

Governments should:

• increase NHS multiyear funding to recover the healthcare service.
• ensure that the upcoming public inquiry examines the resilience and capacity of the urgent and emergency care system in the run up to the pandemic, as well as the performance of the system, to enable lessons to be learned for the future.
• ensure that there is adequate capacity for COVID-19 testing for ED staff (and their households), with short turnaround times that allow quick and safe return to work.

NHS England and devolved equivalents should:

• ensure robust coordination of safety information produced by the new HSIB, Coroner Prevention of Future Deaths reports, NHS Resolution, National Reporting and Learning Service (NRLS), NICE, and alerts currently available on the Central Alerting System.

Regulators should:

• regularly disseminate examples of good practice occurring in EDs to support quality improvement.
• use the RCEM Best Practice Guideline on ‘Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) during the Coronavirus Pandemic’ to inform inspections.