A&E treatment is 'a lottery'

PATIENTS attending Accident and Emergency face a lottery as to what type of care they receive, one States member believes.

Deputy Mike Hadley has raised service-level concerns after the contents of two highly critical reports about the Princess Elizabeth Hospital department were made public.

One, produced by Capita, said the skills and expertise of the nursing staff were exemplary.

And the other, by the College of Emergency Medicine, pointed out that three GPs who worked in the department full time and two who did 50% of their work at the department were experienced.

However, it questioned the experience of a pool of 10 others who covered shifts.

That was one of Deputy Hadley's main concerns. 'The problem is, you don't want a lottery in that the standard of care varies depending on what time you end up in there,' he said.