ON RTÉ radio news a few weeks ago, Dr Chris Luke correctly highlighted the crisis in staffing our A&E departments but also took the opportunity to agree with his interviewer that the closure of smaller hospital A&E services may be no bad thing and would bring about economies of scale and improved quality of care.

UP to 17% of tasks carried out by junior doctors involve “finding stuff and paperwork” and 15% are either non-medical or could be done by a less-skilled hospital worker, a survey has found.