Unnecessary delays in accident and emergency departments: do medical and surgical senior house officers need to vet admissions?

Work was carried out to determine whether patients requiring emergency medical or surgical admission to hospital via accident and emergency (A&E) departments benefit from initial assessment by the ward senior house officer (SHO) as well as the A&E SHO. Two comparable consultant-led A&E departments sharing the same catchment population and receiving similar numbers of new patients each year were studied. A panel of four consultants audited the A&E notes and in-patient records of consecutive emergency medical and surgical patients admitted to two hospitals over the same 6 month period.

Patient assessment of treatment following knee injury.

A survey of 100 sports-injured cases was carried out to elicit patients' personal assessment of their treatment and to investigate the utility of a typical database system for recording and analysis. The cases were limited to knee injuries, with a high proportion arising from football of various types and interesting light was thrown on several possible contributory factors.

Alcohol-related attendances at an accident and emergency department.

Using a self-administered alcohol-related questionnaire and the clinical records a survey was made of the prevalence and severity of alcohol-related problems in the accident and emergency department at the Belfast City Hospital. Of 10,410 consecutive attendances during three months, 6,625 completed a questionnaire: 4,349 admitted they took alcohol at some time, 906 men exceeded 21 units weekly, and 490 women exceeded 14 units weekly. The majority of those who drank were under the age of 35 years.

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis in Northern Ireland: twenty years' experience.

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a rare degenerative disease of the central nervous system that affects primarily children and adolescents. It is a late manifestation of measles virus infection. In a 20-year period (1965-85) there have been 26 cases of SSPE in Northern Ireland, a frequency of approximately one case per 1.