Royal College of Emergency Medicine

The College in its current form was incorporated by royal charter in 2008. However, the history of its preceding organisations, the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine and the British Association for Emergency Medicine, date back to 1993 and 1967 respectively. 1st association in the UK Traditionally in British hospital practice, "casualty departments" were staffed and led mainly by non-consultant doctors with surgical backgrounds. The first UK doctor to be designated as a "Consultant Surgeon in Charge of the Casualty Department and Receiving Room" was Maurice Ellis, who was appointed at Leeds General Infirmary in 1952. Another 15 years passed before a distinct professional body came into being; Ellis became the head of the Casualty Surgeons Association (CSA) which first met on 12 October 1967 at BMA House (a year before the equivalent American College of Emergency Physicians in the United States). In July 2017 the college produced a report saying that the NHS needed at least 5,000 more beds to achieve safe bed occupancy levels and hit the four-hour target in emergency departments. ==Role of the College==

The College sets standards of training and administers examinations for emergency physicians. It also organises annual scientific meetings, as well as continuing professional development meetings for its members. In November 2021 it produced a report showing that pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom had produced more than 4,500 excess deaths in 2020-21 as a result of crowding or 12-hour stays in emergency departments. ==Examinations==

The College sets the qualification awarded by examination that lead to a Certificate of Completion of Training in emergency medicine training in the United Kingdom - the Fellowship of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (FRCEM). Doctors who complete this training program may sit the FCEM examination, and on completion become a Fellow of the College and may be recommended by the College for a Certificate of Completion of Training in emergency medicine. History of the examinations The first sitting of the College's examination was the Fellowship of the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine (FFAEM) examination, equivalent to the current Final FRCEM, was in October 1996. In 2003 the College introduced an introductory examination, now the preferred route of entry to specialist registrar training, the Membership of the Faculty of A&E Medicine (MFAEM). Both examinations were renamed in 2006, as part of the creation of the College, as Fellowship of the College of Emergency Medicine (FCEM) and Membership of the College of Emergency Medicine (MCEM) respectively. Further revisions in July 2021 saw the exams being separated out again; the FRCEM Primary and FRCEM Intermediate qualifications were depreciated and replaced with the MRCEM primary and MRCEM intermediate SBA examinations (which in the interim had continued as a qualification for doctors not in formal training programmes). ==See also==