March 2026: Global Emergency Care in 2026: Doing More with Less

By Anisa Jafar, Rosa Gallop, Zenira Elbasheer

On 27th March 2026, GECCo joined forces with Dharura Global Emergency Care for our annual face-to-face event. The full-day programme convened in Bristol’s iconic Watershed, bringing together clinicians, allied healthcare professionals, researchers, and global health practitioners to explore how emergency care continues to adapt in the context of our current world whereby less resource, less focus and less humanity are swiftly becoming the norm in the context where all three are needed most.

Opening & Keynote

The keynote address, delivered by Simon Horne (Derriford Hospital, Plymouth & British Army), explored “The UK at war: an unexpected route to spotlight the value of GEM.”Drawing on his experience across military and civilian systems, he highlighted how crisis settings expose both strengths and gaps in emergency care delivery. The strengths, frequently mirrored in low-resource settings, are often not capitalised upon in high-resourced settings leaving plenty of learning for systems such as the UK National Health Service in order to root out wasted effort in favour of maintaining high quality interventions which make a genuine difference to patient care.

Growing the potential of emergency care from within Sub-Saharan Africa

• Nang Tège Ekumah University Hospitals of Derby & Burton / Ghana
  
• Claire Kilbride Bristol Royal Infirmary / Kenya
  
• Tunde Ashaolu York & Scarborough Teaching Hospitals / Nigeria

Our three panelists shared perspectives on locally led development and sustainable system strengthening, emphasising the importance of context-specific solutions and equitable collaboration. In particular they highlighted how important context really is when it comes to working with colleagues in different settings: never assuming anything whatsoever, whilst listening, learning and adapting. It was poignant to be reminded that no matter how equitable partnerships appear to become, there remain inequities just beneath the surface. These become very starkly visible when a healthcare colleague with vast, varied and long-term experience in emergency care comes from a lower income country (with a less well developed healthcare system) into a higher income country (with a better developed healthcare system). The bulk of their experience is quite frequently overlooked, beyond the obvious need to do some relative benchmarking and quality assurance (as ought to be expected when anyone enters a new system).  The opposite is often true in the opposite direction.

Workshops 

Interactive workshops formed a core part of the programme, with contributors including:

Hannah Wilcock, Matt Francis, and Tom Roberts– this workshop explored what an RCEM Global Emergency Medicine (GEM) fellowship might look like. This was an important session because it considered the scope of  RCEM’s GEM work and the role it has in supporting those countries keen to further develop their EM specialty. At the same time it explored the practical possibility of how a GEM fellowship might be constructed, using the RCEM TERN fellowship as an example to potentially build from. When such a fellowship becomes a possibility, the outcomes of these workshops will be fed into RCEM GEM committee discussions.

Ayman Jundi and Paul Ransom– both workshop leads have extensive experience in developing and delivering training in austere and demanding environments. Their workshop took different aspects of delivering EM training including logistics and practical considerations and had delegates considering how to address them. They used the RCEM programme with North West Syria as an example to illustrate real work which had  taken place to navigate EM training delivery in a fluctuating and challenging context.

Andy Lockyer & Colin Macalindin – focused their workshop on how to get your local NHS trust invested in global health. The Dharura partnership and its support from within University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust is one example of such investment. It is testament to many years of hard work and development of trust, with evidence of indisputable mutual benefit being used to strengthen the partnership.

‘Little GEMs’ – lightning presentations

This varied session showcased a range of short presentations from:

• Amy Hutton – Amy spoke of OCEAN who are launching a clinical partnership programme with colleagues in  Nepal
  
• Paul Ransom – Paul presented on behalf of Mohammed Qandil and his astounding work in Gaza using pericardiocentesis in the definitive management of cardiac tamponade.
  
• Kirsty Challen – Kirsty highlighted the research she has been supporting in Ethiopia which explores the impact of a new hybrid delivery of the Basic Emergency Care course
• Shivani Patel – Shivani shifted gear as she discussed some of Elrha’s work which is focused upon non-communicable disease in humanitarian emergencies in Africa

These presentations scratched the surface of our UK involvement in diverse research, programme development and innovation across global emergency care settings.

Humanitarianism: emergency care within a less humane system

• Sohaib Safi Médecins Sans Frontières, Palestine
• Ahmed Abd El Rahman Médecins Sans Frontières, Sudan
• Tracey Clatworthy Heart Safe Group / WHO, Ukraine
  

Speakers reflected on the ethical and operational challenges of delivering care in complex humanitarian environments, highlighting the realities faced by clinicians and logisticians. This was placed thoughtfully and intimately in context of a wild geopolitical environment whereby the ‘old’ rules of engagement more and more often no longer seem to exist. What was abundantly clear was the role of emergency care in these times of utter devastation, no more so than as described by Sohaib’s time in Gaza. Even with nothing, literally nothing, overwhelmed by the most unimaginable horrors of genocide, emergency care professionals show up, day after day, digging right to the bottom of their soil as they continue to deliver care. 

Network-building

As always there was plenty of opportunity for all attendees and speakers to discuss with  and meet each other including a fun game where throughout the day, delegates competed in groups to find others who worked in different countries and then pin their team colours on those countries on a map. There was of course a winning team which fueled the competition that little bit more – no-one can resist a prize after all!.  It is via enabling delegates to connect, share ideas, and explore opportunities for collaboration that we keep building sustainable engagement in various global EM contexts.  Informal discussions continued into the evening social, reflecting the strong sense of community across GECCo and Dharura events.

The meeting closed with reflections on the central theme — that “doing more with less” remains both a challenge and a driver for innovation across global emergency care.