Strict new rules to keep crowds down and help save lives

change while embracing the new practices we’ve seen during this crisis, with patient and staff safety at the forefront of thinking.

“Our position statement outlines what we must achieve and the areas to focus on to get us there.

“As we move beyond the peak of this outbreak, now is the time to act to ensure patient safety is never jeopardised again through poor infection control, design, physical crowding, inadequate staff protection and corridor care.

“The NHS has coped magnificently so far despite facing many challenges, not least the supply community, out of hours or specialist care has struggled to cope.

“Infection prevention and control measures will need rapid implementation if we are to avoid the horror of a patient who has been safely isolating for weeks but then needs emergency care, has to come to the emergency department and, by doing so, catches Covid-19 and comes to harm.

“That is a scenario that we must not allow to happen.

“We will need levels of PPE appropriate to the risks of working with undifferentiated patients and an understanding that work will take longer due to segregation of departments and the donning, doffing and disposal of PPE.

“There are many actions we need to see happen while Covid19 is endemic, and action must be fast.we know it can be done.”

Dr Adrian Boyle, vicepresident of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “It is unconscionable that we return to the overcrowded departments that we have had in the past where people are waiting next to each other and in corridors and not socially distancing.

“This is now unacceptable. We need to have maximum occupancy and some of the less timecritical patients will need to be looked after away from the emergency department in hot clinics.

“It is simply not safe to allow our waiting rooms and corridors in emergency departments to become as crowded as they were before the pandemic.

“Emergency departments need to concentrate their space and effort on the most seriously ill and injured.

“We must not allow our patients and staff to catch Covid19 in a waiting room or corridor. Patients can be assured that they will always be seen, but the way they are seen will be different, may involve waiting longer or being directed to a different place.

“In addition, people who phone NHS 111 before going to an emergency department may have shorter waits.”

The proposals would represent the biggest transformation of emergency medicine in decades, it was said.

The plans are now being considered by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.