Hospital accident and emergency wards are in crisis as the supply of doctors fails to keep pace with demand for them in A&E departments according to medics’ representatives.

The warning from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine came as an A&E in the east Midlands announced it may have to temporarily close its doors at night owing to a national shortage of emergency doctors.

United Lincolnshire hospitals NHS trust (ULHT) said that a “crisis point” had been reached and patients’ lives could be put at risk if action was not taken at Grantham and District hospital.

Management at ULHT said they were looking to reduce A&E hours because the department was facing a severe shortage of doctors.



The trust, which runs the A&E, as well as two others in the region, said that it had been seriously affected by a “national shortage of appropriately trained doctors to work in A&Es”, adding: “We have reached a crisis point and we may put patients at risk if we don’t act.”

Dr Suneil Kapadia, medical director at ULHT, said: “We haven’t made a final decision yet, and we hope to avoid this, but the reality is we will need to temporarily reduce the opening hours of A&E at Grantham. The quality and safety of patient care is the trust’s number one priority and we haven’t rested on our laurels.

“We have tried to recruit in the UK and internationally, and we have offered premium rates to attract agency doctors whilst investing £4m in urgent care services. Despite this, we have reached crisis point.”

Dr Clifford Mann, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the “great efforts” made by doctors and nurses to help patients in under-resourced locations sometimes was not sustainable.



“As well as potentially putting patient safety at risk, placing an ever-increasing workload on overstretched staff can create a vicious circle in retention and recruitment with many overworked trainees simply choosing to leave the country or indeed the specialty altogether,” Mann said.

“The wider picture is there is a real crisis in emergency medicine as our workforce numbers are not growing fast enough to keep pace with rising numbers of patients attending A&E departments.”

Shortages of doctors and nurses have come into sharp focus at other hospitals recently. The chief executive of crisis-hit North Middlesex hospital left her post after NHS inspectors found its A&E unit was risking patients’ health by forcing them to endure “excessive” waits to see a doctor, it emerged last month.

Julie Lowe was replaced on an interim basis by a senior executive from another London hospital in the wake of a scathing report by the Care Quality Commission into multiple patient safety failings at the North Middlesex.

The NHS care regulator’s inspectors found that shortages of doctors and nurses in A&E were so acute, and the unit so busy, that untrained receptionists were judging which patients needed medical attention first. It is one of the busiest A&Es in London, treating 500 patients a day.

The report said: “Walk-in patients were seen by a receptionist, who decided if they were suitable for the urgent care centre or, with a more serious condition, needed to go to the main emergency department.”