A&E considers calling in Army medics due to shortage of doctors Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which was mired in scandal when an investigation found appalling standards of care and at least 400 more patients died there than would be expected, has also used Army doctors in recent months. Yvette Cooper, MP for Pontefract and Castleford said: "The Government needs to explain how it has come to this, with two NHS hospital trusts now needing help from the army to keep services open. Twelve thousand people have signed our petition to get Pontefract A&E re-opened and we want to see action by Mid Yorkshire Trust to deliver on their promises to local people. So clearly action which brings additional doctors into Pontefract to re-open services is important and welcome. But it is deeply worrying that two hospitals have now had to seek help from the Army because of the shortage of doctors and the government needs to explain urgently why they have allowed it to come to this and what action Ministers will take to deliver the doctors we need. Dr Taj Hassan, vice president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said there was a shortage of around 270 middle grade doctors in emergency medicine and also a shortage of consultant. He said the shortage will continue as there are too few juniors entering the specialty so the problem may get worse in the future. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said no approach had been received from the Department of Health. For Army doctors to be used in this way the trust would have to appeal to the Department of Health for help, which would then contact the MoD. Two Army consultants worked at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust for six weeks last year along with a number of nurses to mentor and train staff but were not there to replace regular NHS doctors. Professor Tim Hendra, Medical Director at The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust said: "Local people in Pontefract have told us very clearly that they want their A&E department open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We remain committed to meeting that demand and recruiting sufficient doctors to operate a safe service so that we can re-open their A&E at night as soon as possible. He said a review had been conducted to consider all the options. That review confirmed that the Trust had fully considered all the options but suggested that it would be appropriate to approach the army for doctors who could temporarily help. These doctors would be trained medical staff that are not currently on military service who could provide temporary support with our staffing rotas. We understand that this is only offered in exceptional circumstances. So far, we have only had some very early exploratory conversations with the army," he said. A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "The number of doctors is rising - we have 3,700 more doctors since May 2010, and the number of those specialising in emergency medicine is going up. We are working with the College of Emergency Medicine to ensure that high quality doctors are recruited and appropriately trained as well as increasing the numbers of doctors in the specialty of emergency medicine.