Letter from the editor

Published: 18 August 2011

Richard Brownhill writes...

Urgent and Emergency Care continues to develop and diversify and now of course, the term, ‘unscheduled care’ is in common parlance. 

Over the years, Casualty (still held dear by the BBC!), A&E, Emergency Departments or ED, continue to be used interchangeably. 
Recently, we were trying to define a service within my own organisation and then of course came the need to find a name.

Rapid Assessment and Treatment Unit (RATU) was a term coined by some of our professional advisers, Acute Assessment Unit, Ambulatory Assessment Unit... the list went on.

I am sure we are not unique and sometimes get lost in the terminology of things, and then of course if the staff don’t quite ‘gel’ with it, there is little hope for the public, made only more confusing when the various generations of staff answer the telephone replying ‘Casualty, A&E or ED.’ 

As always health care is undergoing major change, but there are clear signs of integrated models being the way forward.

At a recent conference I attended The King’s Fund spoke of the need to reduce variability in care as a means of keeping costs down. 

This could be strengthened clinically by work that NICE has been doing around the NICE pathways and also by providing our patients with consistency.

Ideas like this are worth striving for where there is still a potential threat to nursing posts in some areas. Nurses must get involved in commissioning in every way they can to ensure their huge contribution is recognised.

As a committee, we still wish to represent your local and national issues. It would be fantastic to receive information about your challenges and initiatives. Your contributions could then be sent to others through our newsletter.

Please forward any articles, links or suggestions to richardbrownhill@blueyonder.co.uk