London's hospitals are failing to provide a safe level of out-of-hours emergency care which is costing the lives of at least 500 patients a year, a report has concluded. Acutely ill or injured patients are not getting the care they need because too many junior doctors are covering too many emergency situations without the specialist expertise of consultants.
The draft document, obtained by the Health Service Journal, was commissioned by NHS London from 26 experts and presented to a private meeting of the health authority last month. It says: "Our hospital emergency services are not as reliably safe as might be expected...."Each year there are around 25,000 deaths in hospital following emergency admission. If the weekend mortality rate in London was the same as the weekday rate, there would be around 520 fewer deaths. Reduced service provision at weekends is associated with this higher mortality rate...The chance of death significantly increases if a patient is admitted out-of-hours compared to in hours."
As the report observes "patients have little choice over when and where they are treated in an emergency".
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