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Press release: NHS Confederation responds to the NCEPOD "Trauma: who cares?" report

21 Nov 2007

Commenting on the publication of NCEPOD report on the quality trauma care, Gill Morgan, director of the NHS Confederation which represents more than 95 per cent of NHS organisations, said:

"This report reinforces all the evidence that patients who have suffered severe or complex trauma, for example after a road traffic accident, are more likely to survive when taken to centres specially equipped and staffed to deal with their condition.

"If a patients suffers a severe head injury, it is critical they to go to an expert neurosurgical unit; we must get used to ambulances going past the nearest hospital in favour of the safest hospital.

"The report stresses the need for hospitals and clinicians to work as partners to ensure that patients get to the right place as quickly as possible. This may require expert resuscitation at the site of the injury, in an ambulance or at a local unit, but fundamentally, it is the transfer into the hands of experts that makes the difference."

"This is not about the centralisation of accident and emergency services across the board, but about ensuring that the small number of patients with severe trauma receive the best and safest care which offers them the greatest chance of survival and the greatest chance of full recovery. As the report demonstrates this approach is already being taken in many parts of the country.

"It is reassuring to see the principles underpinning the redesign of stroke and heart attack services i.e. getting patients to the hospital with the right services rather than to the closest hospital, also support the management of patients with severe trauma."

ENDS

Notes for editors

1. The NHS Confederation represents more than 95% of the organisations that make up the NHS. Its members include the majority of NHS acute trusts, ambulance trusts, foundation trusts, mental health trusts, primary care trusts, special health authorities and strategic health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.

Contact details

2. Contact Niall Smith 020 7074 3304 or 077 6777 0309 or Ruth Kennedy 020 7074 3312 or 078 8447 3086.  For out of hours media enquiries, please call the Duty Press Officer on 07880 500726.

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