In November 2013 the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) and the Scottish Government held a joint Consensus Conference on Patient Flow in Acute Medicine. This event aimed to reach consensus on how to reduce unnecessary bed moves for patients and improve patient flow, so as to ensure that there is sufficient capacity in hospitals and the community for patients’ needs including times of winter pressure.

The Consensus Statement produced at this event has now been published along with the papers presented at the event in an open-access Supplement to The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

As the NHS moves further towards being a genuinely seven day service, we believe that the consensus reached at this event will not only prove invaluable to hospitals throughout Scotland, but also provide a model for wider potential replication throughout the UK.

The RCPE will be working with the Scottish Government to consider how system design can be improved going forwards, and how the other recommendations within the statement could be implemented. In doing so, we wish to build and maintain a supportive environment for the implementation of standards that enable staff to deliver high quality care working as part of true multi-professional teams.

Fellows and Members can access a number of lectures from the conference as online content via the Professional & Clinical Practice section in our Online Learning Portal (Fellows and Members’ log-in required)