RCEM's Global Emergency Medicine team interviews Ghana's A&E clinicians

Since 2021, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has had an ongoing health partnership with the Emergency Medicine Faculty at the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS).

Similarly to all of the College's international work, it is a collaboration focussed on strengthening emergency care systems in a sustainable, locally-led way.

Over the last year, our partnership has received funding as part of the Global Health Workforce Programme to support capacity building and efforts to scale up emergency care across Ghana.

In Ghana, Emergency Medicine is at an exciting point and is growing — fast. But with just 12 EM consultants in government hospitals across the country, the need for training support and system development is clear.

The tragic collapse of the Accra Sports Stadium in May 2001, which resulted in the deaths of 127 Ghanaians, saw the Ghana government recognise the need for developing Emergency Medicine as a specialty.

In response to public outcry, the Ghanaian government established a new national Accident and Emergency Center in Kumasi. This saw the development of a formalised Emergency Medicine residency programme for doctors and nurses in 2009 at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi and since then another programme has been developed at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

The RCEM has been working with the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons since 2021 with funding from the Department of Social Care (DHSC)/THET.

The first year focused on supporting the key goal of ensuring an “adequate health workforce with the requisite knowledge, skills, competences and attitudes” and was achieved through, supporting with the development of Ghana’s Emergency Medicine curricula, and developing a framework and set of resources to replicated best practice across other specialities​. In April 2022 the team carried out an international accreditation assessment visit of focusing on identifying areas for improvement and providing appropriate responses and recommendations​.

Train the trainer sessions on the latest approaches in medical education, including workplace-based assessments were conducted, through a hybrid approach culminating in an in-person session delivered in to over 90 trainers in Ghana​ as a part of the African Conference of Emergency Medicine.

Following this RCEM was successful in receiving a large-scale grant from DHSC/THET to continue supporting the following key areas:

Pilot project at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to develop plans to decentralise emergency care away from the two main tertiary centres.
Development of leadership in Emergency Medicine​, through adapting the RCEM EM leader’s programme.
Virtual lectures linked the GCPS curricula with a focus on bi-directional learning.
International exchanges of RCEM members and GCPS EM faculty members.

Find out more: rcem.ac.uk/global-emergency-medicine-programmes/