Taskforce seeks to tackle “crisis” in emergency medicine recruitment

Abstract

Expanding the routes into training in emergency medicine, developing the role of the advanced nurse practitioner, and relaxing immigration rules are all options currently being considered by an emergency medicine taskforce in a bid to ease the shortage of doctors in the specialty. The taskforce—which includes representatives from the royal colleges, the Department of Health, the General Medical Council, and NHS Employers—was set up last year amid a realisation that a crisis point had been reached and that the safety of patients was under threat. “We have been aware of difficulties [caused by shortages] in isolated parts of the country for around two years, but the real crisis has occurred in the past 12 months,” Ruth Brown, vice president of the College of Emergency Medicine, told BMJ …