St Thomas' Hospital to rename A&E department

Work began earlier this year on a £20 million project to create a new 'emergency floor' at St Thomas' Hospital putting the acute care wards on the same level as the accident and emergency department.

"Clinicians in A&E are keen to ensure that, as part of the emergency floor project and emergency care pathway transformation programme, A&E at St Thomas' is known as the emergency department – this has already been implemented in many other hospitals and is intended to reinforce the message that patients should only go to A&E in an emergency," said Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Ron Kerr.

"However, A&E is a nationally recognised term with high levels of familiarity to patients and the public – therefore it is proposed to avoid confusion by using the descriptor 'emergency department (A&E)'."