BMJ 1995;310:868 (1 April)

Letters

More resources are required to facilitate the discharge of acutely ill elderly people

EDITOR,--Richard Hobbs's editorial on the increase in emergency admissions draws attention to an important trend, which, as he states, should be the subject of urgent research to see exactly what is happening and why.1 It is surprising that he does not mention demographic changes leading to relative increases in the numbers of very elderly people as these changes are likely to be one important reason for the rising rates of emergency admissions. Unfortunately, in advance of any results from research he suggests solutions that are born of political correctness rather than reasoned appraisal.

The trends towards shorter stays in surgery seem unlikely to happen quickly enough for the problems on medical wards to be solved simply by the renaming of surgical beds as medical beds. For example, on the basis of retrospective studies a substantially shorter stay was one of the benefits expected from the widespread introduction of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Rising emergency admissions
Richard Hobbs
BMJ 1995 310: 207-208. [Extract] [Full Text]

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