Patients will continue to access Emergency services via Accident and Emergency Departments, where appropriate. The emergency services will be supported by a wide range of primary care initiatives aimed at ensuring more appropriate use of emergency services. The NHS Plan outlined a number of improvement targets for emergency care, including:

By 2004 no-one to wait more than four hours in A&E Department from arrival to admission to a bed in a hospital, transfer elsewhere or discharge. The average length of waiting should fall to 75 minutes.

The Reforming Emergency Care report outlined the proposed ways in which these changes and subsequent improvements could be achieved.

Increased use of Information Technology will enable improved access and assessment, access to diagnostic and support services and a reduction in the duplication of data gathering. Staff will be supported in their assessments by a decision support system, developed from the Clinical Assessment System used by NHS Direct and Walk-in centres. By 2004, all GP Out Of Hours services and NHS Direct will be able to pass information between them, thus eliminating the need for patients to repeat information and making the results of previous assessments available electronically to the next clinical professional.