Better Together: Collaborative working between emergency medicine and critical care framework launched

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) have collaboratively produced new guidance that outlines how emergency care and critical care can work together more closely and learn from each other to the benefit of patients. Better Together: Collaborative Working Between Emergency and Critical Care covers processes, staffing and training, and equipment, and outlines recommendations and standards aimed at improving the care of patients and patient outcomes.

Authored by clinicians from both emergency medicine and critical care, this nationally agreed strategy document gives practical outcomes to foster closer working relationships and to achieve consistency in clinical care for critically ill adult patients in the resuscitation area in emergency departments across the UK.

Adverse effects on both patients and staff continue as the number of people presenting at the front door rises incessantly. The pandemic has highlighted the crucial need for collaborative working. This guidance aims to build on cross-specialty processes and treatment pathways for the care of critically ill patients arriving in our emergency departments with the aim of improving the care of these patients and the pathways that staff from all specialties should follow.

Work on this guidance began in 2018 with input from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM), the Intensive Care Society (ICS), the Resuscitation Council UK, and the UK Critical Care Nursing Alliance (UKCCNA).