Baroness Donaghy
Main Page: Baroness Donaghy (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Donaghy
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the availability of children’s emergency beds in the NHS in England; and whether they have a strategy for addressing any shortfall.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, in November 2019, 321 paediatric critical care beds were available in England, of which 268 were occupied, giving an occupancy rate of 83.5%. Management of these sensitive, difficult-to-manage services is a complicated affair. That is why NHS England undertook a review of paediatric critical care services, which advocated that hospitals in each region need to work together to co-ordinate capacity and resources.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his Answer, but he did not mention the children with mental health issues who have been bussed hundreds of miles or the extremely sick children who have been put on main wards to make way for even sicker children in the paediatric specialist units. I do not think that most professionals even trust the figure the Minister has given; the professional organisations are saying that it was nearer 100% over December. However, I am not going to trade figures backwards and forwards with the Minister. I am just going to ask him: how many more times do the professional organisations of paediatric specialists and A&E doctors have to say that the system is at breaking point before the Government take immediate action?
Lord Bethell
I thank the noble Baroness for her question and for the detailed article that she wrote for PoliticsHome giving the thinking behind it. In it, serious questions are asked by the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and the president of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society. The data presented by the NHS is prepared by front-line clinicians and collated by CCGs, and the adulteration or misrepresentation of those figures is an offence both to the values of the NHS and in law. We take the figures very seriously.