"ambulance/paramedics"

Dear Anonymous, Thank you for posting your positive comment about our Emergency Department staff, we really appreciate it. Our chief operating officer and the rest of the senior management team and ED staff are concentrating their efforts on how to keep patients flowing (from the ambulance to the ED, from the ED to the rest of the hospital and from the hospital back into the community). If I may share with you, our priorities as an Emergency Department are to keep patients safe, to provide the best care we can, and to do so in a timely manner (which in effect means meeting national targets.) At the moment, because of the extremely busy situation we are facing, our focus is almost entirely on patient safety and care. If we are having to delay accepting ambulance handovers, it is purely for patient safety reasons. Never for shifting target pressures. Of course, you are right that keeping ambulances waiting for long periods in the ED does not work. Unfortunately there isn't any easy immediate solution but I can tell you the heads of all the relevant clinical and commissioning groups are meeting to try and find a way forward. And in the meantime, clinically we are doing and will continue to do everything we can to look after our patients in very difficult circumstances. Thank you once again for taking the time to share your thoughts. Yours sincerely Pro Mukherjee Consultant in Emergency Medicine University Hospitals of Leicester