Taunton and Somerset Foundation Trust
Taunton and Somerset Foundation Trust is the southernmost department on the Severn training programme and also receives trainees from the Peninsula deanery. It is a "typical DGH" department seeing the full range of emergency presentations and covering a catchment of 350,000 patients with 80,000 patient attendances per year. There are 13 consultants, providing cover 16 hrs per day, seven days a week. Registrars and non-training grades provide 24 hour cover. Approximately 15,000 children attend the department each year and two of the consultants are dually accredited in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. Other special interests include Emergency Medicine Ultrasound with Dr. Paul Baines who is a nationally recognised trainer, research - Dr James Gagg, and trauma - Dr Cliff Mann, National Advisor (A&E) for NHS England.
Musgrove Park Hospital is the PCI centre for the whole county, is a trauma unit and has all specialties other than neurosurgery, plastic surgery and cardio-thoracics on site.
As a consequence of the interests and activities of the ED consultants and its geographical location, Taunton hosts both the annual & monthly critical appraisal training day and biannually with Exeter hosts the regional EM research day.
Within the department training is embedded into the middle grade timetable, attendance at Regional training is mandatory and current research projects include HALT-IT, CRASH3, RAMPP, BEST and fracture free, with more paediatric based research likely in the future.
Taunton has much to offer an EM trainee, particularly those more minded to treat agricultural injuries with an ISS score of >16 rather than self-administered narcotics overdoses with a respiratory rate <6.
The Acute Medical Unit (AMU) is a well-supported unit with consultant presence from 8am until 21:30 daily and registrar presence 24hours a day. We admitted 40-50 patients daily and have an active ambulatory care unit which provides ACCS trainees the opportunity to gain this additional exposure. There is in addition a frailty unit based on the 51 bedded admissions unit staffed by dedicated care of the elderly physicians. The medical take is unselected, with opportunities to clerk patients admitted directly to CCU following PCI and to the stroke unit following thrombolysis calls.