Dr Chris Moulton, who has led GIRFT’s work in emergency medicine improvement for the past eight years, has received the prestigious President’s Medal from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) for services above and beyond the call of duty.
The Dr Clifford Mann President’s Medal, named after the former RCEM president and GIRFT lead who died in 2021, recognises individuals who have made a significant contribution to emergency medicine.
Dr Moulton was awarded the honour in 2023 but, due to family circumstances and work commitments, was only able to collect it at the RCEM annual diploma ceremony in Edinburgh in July. He was presented with the medal by outgoing RCEM president Dr Adrian Boyle, recognising his services to RCEM and to developing the GIRFT emergency medicine data and national reports for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Dr Moulton was a consultant in emergency medicine at the Royal Bolton Hospital for more than 25 years, and vice-president of RCEM from 2013 to 2019. He is now a visiting professor in emergency medicine at the University of Bolton.
He was appointed as the GIRFT clinical lead for EM in 2017, alongside Dr Clifford Mann. Together, they carried out a data-driven review of 90 of England’s type 1 emergency departments – those that provide a consultant-led 24-hour service with full resuscitation facilities – and co-authored the GIRFT national report for EM (2021), making a series of 17 recommendations to help match ED capacity to local demand, improve patient flow and reduce avoidable costs.
Dr Moulton has continued in the role since Dr Mann’s untimely death in 2021, visiting the remainder of the emergency departments in England, as well as those in Northern Ireland and Wales, accompanied by GIRFT UEC review lead Darren Best.
Together with analytics lead Andrew Boasman, they have developed and implemented key GIRFT resources such as the Summary Emergency Department Indicator Table (SEDIT), a tool that looks at ED demand, capacity, flow and patient outcomes and is published online each month for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In addition, Dr Moulton has worked with Linda Stannard to develop the Alternatives to ED (A-tED) system, which is widely used to assess the community’s ability to provide urgent and emergency care for patients.
Dr Moulton was the lead clinical author of a landmark 2022 research paper that showed the association between delays to patient admission from the ED and mortality. He is now one of the senior leaders of GIRFT’s UEC team.
He said:
“I was delighted to receive the President’s medal and pleased that my team’s work has contributed to improvements in patient care and safety”.
