Commenting on NHS England’s announcement that hospitals will be asked to deliver health MOTs to older patients presenting with frailty-related conditions in emergency departments, Dr Tim Cooksley, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “It is often too late once a patient is already in an emergency department and this will not stop older patients languishing in corridors unless the crisis in social care is resolved.
“There remain over 10,000 patients every day in hospitals who could be managed at home and lack of social care is preventing them from being able to be so.
“Urgent and emergency care services remain under huge pressure and this will not reduce dangerous overcrowding without addressing other issues simultaneously.”