ALL ACCIDENT and emergency patients should be seen, treated and discharged or admitted within four hours, under new national benchmarks being pursued by Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital bosses.

At the trust's first meeting of 2003, board members praised the government's Emergency Services Collaborative programme, which aims to overhaul not just A&E departments nationally, but also the entire emergency care system.

Ambulance services, primary care trusts and social services among others will be expected to join forces to achieve the new four-hour target by the end of 2004.

A report seen by the local NHS trust members said: "This is promoted by the Modernisation Agency as being the largest and most significant collaborative undertaken so far in the NHS.

"There is no doubt that it is intended to make a significant difference to patient experience in accident and emergency. There are significant opportunities for the Trust to progress services across the emergency care spectrum.

"The Trust has received an allocation of £115K which is intended to project manage the collaborative.

The Trust is in the second wave of the collaborative along with 32 other acute trusts and A&E departments."

Under the scheme each trust is expected to establish teams to improve the numbers of patients going through four key areas: A&E minor conditions, A&E major conditions, medical emergency patients, and surgical emergency patients.

"A number of discussions have taken place internally within the Trust to agree how the emergency services collaborative can be set up," said the report.

"It is proposed that the four key areas will be directorate based and owned which reflects recent experience that change management is most effectively undertaken by small teams with local ownership.

"It is proposed to appoint on a one-year secondment basis a project manager, each project supported by the general manager and clinical director for the relevant directorates."

Chairman of the local trust, Sheila Collins, said: "The trust supports this wholeheartedly."