'Paucity of evidence' for transferring patients away from hospitals (From Surrey Comet)

'Paucity of evidence' for transferring patients away from hospitals

6:21pm Tuesday 23rd March 2010 in Kingston Hospital under threat By David Lindsell

This article appeared in the Surrey Comet on March 12 2010

NHS plans to shift patients away from A+Es to polyclinics and urgent care centres are flawed, according to a report commissioned by the Department for Health.

The report by the Primary Care Foundation said there was no evidence to support the assumption that more than half of patients could diverted from casualty units.

It said: "There is a paucity of evidence on which to base policy and local system design.

"There may be benefits of systems of joint working between primary and emergency care but at present this cannot be said to evidence based."

Tory shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "It is simply not true to say that there is any evidence to support the proposition that the services in the community that would justify what is being proposed in terms of the closure of emergency departments have been put in place."

But a spokesman for NHS London said: "Our research shows that in London over 60 per cent of people who attend A&E departments could be cared for more appropriately in different urgent care settings.

"Clinicians reported 87 per cent of children who attend A&E can be better treated in another health setting.

"In the capital we know patients are more likely to use A&E departments because many Londoners live close to a hospital."