An Emergency Care Department is a Department.

Emergency Care Departments may be either major units, providing a 24 hour service seven days a week to which the great majority of Emergency Ambulance cases are taken, or smaller units, in which services are often only available for limited hours and which may not deal with Emergency Ambulance cases.

An Emergency Care Department is not always part of a Hospital Site. Additional activities may also take place such as: elective surgical work of a minor nature, observation and treatment of PATIENTS in Hospital Beds and the holding of Out-Patient Clinics.

Hospital Beds either within or adjacent to a Department will be counted as a WARD or part of a WARD. Work apart from the emergency care service should be recorded in the appropriate data system.

An emergency care service offers care to PATIENTS who arrive with urgent problems and who have not usually been seen previously by a GENERAL PRACTITIONER.

Note that for piloting purposes only, an Emergency Care Department may also be an Ambulatory Emergency Care Service.

This supporting information is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
plural	Emergency Care Departments