article_snippet: Doctors say the controversial practice of ‘boarding’ – which amounts to letting wards overflow – is already being used at a number of under-pressure hospitals in England.
article_snippet: Rather than criticising the measure, desperate A&E doctors say boarding should be used more widely – even though desperate A&E doctors concede the measure is ‘potentially toxic’.
article_snippet: As a result, doctors at the influential Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) have now given boarding doctors at the influential Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) backing.
article_snippet: Boarding spreads the risk across Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, rather than concentrating and multiplying the risk in the emergency department.
article_snippet: Dr Boyle said that ‘a handful’ of hospitals now use boarding during busy periods, but Dr Boyle would not name a handful’ of hospitals.
article_snippet: Dr Boyle was speaking at a conference organised by the RCEM, which is advocating greater use of boarding.
article_snippet: Emergency doctors also see boarding as a way of making Emergency doctors hospital colleagues realise the problems their hospital colleagues are facing.
article_snippet: Dr Chris Whale, clinical director of Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said there was ‘pretty much no evidence’ that boarding was safe in NHS hospitals.
highlights_snippet: Doctors at Royal College of Emergency Medicine have backed boarding .
  