Expert Calls For Safety To Be A Priority

A clinical negligence expert at Irwin Mitchell has called for patient safety to be a priority following the release of a study which has raised concerns over standards in emergency care.

Writing in the Emergency Medicine Journal, a number of medical experts have stated that patients currently have to wait an average of 55 minutes to get to hospital after being seriously injured in an incident.

It has also been claimed that only a few parts of the UK have doctors available to treat such people when they arrive at hospital, although it is thought that volunteer staff are regularly used as part of the service.

Concerns have also been raised over the quality of care available at night, with the standards described as “much worse” than those on offer in the day.

Commenting on the findings, Jennifer Emerson, a clinical negligence solicitor at Irwin Mitchell’s Birmingham office, said: “This new report has raised serious concerns over inconsistencies being seen in the quality of services received by a number of patients across the UK.

“It is vital that such problems are addressed to ensure that a high standard of treatment is seen across the board at NHS Trusts up and down the country.

“We hope that this research will actively encourage health authorities to address this issue and influence them to take a serious look at raising the standard of the services they offer.”