** UK hospitals in West Midlands consider portable outdoor clinical areas to ease ambulance crunches at A & Es
UNITED STATES NEWS
** In an effort to ease West Midlands ER crunches for ambulance staff, area hospitals are contemplating setting up temporary outdoor clinical areas. That is the word from ITV (July 5) which said patients could be seen in “portacabin structures†if hospital brass are unable to solve current EMS pile-ups. According to the news site, over 90% of arriving ambulances at Birmingham City Hospital waited more than 30 minutes, while 70 % of prehospital  units coming to Sandwell General also waited a half an hour. Often the wait time is actually hours. A spokesman for the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust said funding for the proposal has yet to be granted. He said a second idea is to transfer incoming EMS patients from in-service ambulances to on-site equipped and staffed static ambulances.
