Report calls for co-location of primary care with A&E

Primary care services should be located alongside hospital emergency departments, a new report from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Patients Association concludes.1

The report said that patients continued to go to emergency departments even when they were aware of the alternatives, such as out-of-hours GP services, walk-in centres, and the NHS 111 telephone service. In many cases this was because the alternative services may not have had enough capacity or were not available when needed. However, the report added that a substantial and increasing number of patients attended emergency departments …