Paediatric Care: Wating Times

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this question up; this is an important area, and we all know that a year in the life of a child aged 10 is a lot more impactful than it is to a 60 or 70 year-old. It is a question very well put. Since receiving this Question, I have been working on it with the department and talking to the relevant Ministers about what we can do specifically. We are expanding capacity generally through the CDCs and the 95 surgical hubs designed around this space, but we are putting in measures with ICSs and tiering to make sure we are specifically addressing children’s wait times as well.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, it is naturally very stressful for any parent when they face a long wait for their child’s paediatric referral. That stress is often compounded by the fact that it is left to the parents themselves to chase things up through confusing referral systems and systems that are still far too manual and depend on paper letters that get lost. Will the Minister make a priority of improving the information flow to parents about a child’s referral, so that they can quickly and easily see what is happening and know what to expect?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

That is a point very well made. as the noble Lord knows, that is one of my priorities and what we are trying to do with the app. There will be a number of launches, but already we are seeing hundreds of thousands of messages going out via the app to make sure that people are getting them on time. That has become the backbone of our communication system and will expand across the piece to try to cover exactly the points the noble Lord raises.