NIHR SafetyNet Webinar: Understanding emergency doctors’ tolerance of clinical uncertainty

Speakers: Dr Emily Parker, a Hospital Discharge Policy Officer at the Department of Health and Social Care, and Dr Luke Budworth, Senior Research Data Analyst at the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber PSRC.

Webinar held on 12 November 2025.

Description:
Emergency department (ED) doctors regularly make high-stakes decisions under conditions of significant uncertainty. Decisions regarding patient admission, discharge, and clinical investigation often occur with incomplete information, under significant time constraints, and with minimal post-discharge feedback. While a higher tolerance of uncertainty (UT) has been associated with improved clinician well-being and more judicious resource use in other medical specialties, its specific role and impact in emergency medicine remain underexplored. Most existing interventions and research on UT have focused on general practitioners or medical students, overlooking the unique challenges of the ED context.

This seminar will report on a series of mixed-methods studies conducted in Yorkshire that aimed to advance understanding of how emergency doctors experience, interpret, and manage clinical uncertainty. The research addressed four key aims: (1) to explore how UT manifests in emergency care, (2) to develop and validate a UT measure tailored specifically to the ED context, (3) to examine associations between UT, clinician characteristics (e.g., experience), patient outcomes (e.g., reattendance), and healthcare resource utilisation, and (4) to identify the focus of UT interventions in an ED context.

Following an overview of the existing literature on UT in emergency medicine, the presentation will summarise key findings from both qualitative and quantitative phases of the research. Presenters will outline the factors identified as influencing UT and consider their implications for clinical practice, workforce development, and health system efficiency. The session will conclude with a discussion of the theoretical frameworks underpinning the work, and offer recommendations for future research and the design of interventions aimed at supporting the development of UT in ED clinicians.