Mitigating conflict between emergency department and inpatient staff due to access block

Since the outbreak of the COVID-crisis almost five years ago, Emergency Departments (EDs) in Australian hospitals have increasingly been confronted with the phenomenon of "access block" in which the flow of patients to inpatient units is delayed or obstructed. This creates tension between ED staff and health professionals employed in inpatient units. With the current political discourse, there is little reason to hope that this problem will be solved in the short term. As long as no radical changes are made at the political level to combat the issue of access block, the hands of individual clinicians are tied to existing models of care. In this letter to the editor, we outline how the problem of access block occurs in the ED of a Queensland-based hospital and the impact it generates. But also how healthcare leaders can adequately manage the tension between ED and inpatient staff, underscoring the crucial role of emotional intelligence.