Doctors at King's College Hospital in London are pioneering the use of CT as the first response for certain patients rather than treating them in the emergency department (called the accident & emergency or A&E department in the United Kingdom). Conventional protocol has patients taken to the A&E where they are assessed, stabilized and then taken for imaging, a process that can take up to 30 minutes. Now, a patient with a serious head injury, for example, can be taken directly to a CT scanner, which is located beside the A&E department. "The question is, does that patient need to go straight to theatre for life-saving surgery or not?" Tom Best, a physician at King's College Hospital asked. Article