The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs four district general hospitals with emergency departments in Greater Manchester, currently has 16 consultant vacancies in emergency medicine.
The number of SpRs approaching completion of training in the region is fewer than the number of consultant vacancies that are likely to exist over the next year. The situation requires urgent workforce planning to tackle this, and other such problems, says the BMA. Doctors leaders also want the NHS to be more consultant-based, a view that has been supported by recent reviews of postgraduate medical education and training. Manchester consultant in paediatric emergency medicine, Andrew Rowland, a member of the BMA central consultants and specialists committee, believes that other trusts were having similar problems. He said: “My trust has funding for up to 16 additional consultant posts in emergency medicine, which we are really keen to fill. We want to move towards more of a consultant presence in the emergency department. We have difficulty filling these posts, because the number of people who are coming up to CCT dates is not matching the vacancies available.” The College of Emergency Medicine recommends there should be 10 consultants in every emergency department. Its 2008 report The Way Ahead calls for a doubling of consultants in the specialty to 1,500 by 2012.
