Medical Student Places
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Watts
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is not responsible for the crisis we are facing in the health service, but we have had 13 years of cuts in training for doctors. Does he not accept that it was a major mistake not to recruit more doctors and make available more places in universities to train the number of doctors we need?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord raises an important point about the number of doctors, but I fear I am repeating myself. The Government have laid out in their long-term NHS workforce plan that we will have a significant increase in the number of doctors—from 7,500 each year, in five new medical schools. So that may have been the case in the past, but it will not be in the future through to 2030-31.
NHS: Hospital Waiting Times
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Watts
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord raises a good point, as always. It is not always the number of people on waiting list, it is the amount of time they spend on it. As I said in a previous answer, the NHS now triages at an earlier stage to try to identify exactly those patients who need earlier intervention.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that you can jump the list if you pay to see a consultant first. Is that not breaking the NHS rule to treat people on the basis of need?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord raises the point about consultant doctors. They work within the NHS but they also have private practices. That has happened for many years since the NHS was originally formed. He raises a good point but there is nothing new about that.
Deaths: Younger Age Cohorts
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Watts
Lord Watts (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that we should take no notice of keyboard warriors and we should take notice of scientists who have proven facts and used statistics to make sure we make the right decisions?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question and I completely agree with him.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus: Immunisation Programme
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Watts
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She makes a very good point, and I will feed that specific question back to the department. One thing that we were aware of was that certain communities were not as keen as others to take up the immunisation programme, and a lot of work has been done on that.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, are the Government sure they have got their timing right? It seems to me that the boosters have been given about a month behind, in the sense that both Covid and flu are raging before the Covid vaccination boosters are available.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I refer to the answer I gave just a moment ago: 7.7 million people have received their flu jabs since the start of the campaign on 11 September. I assure the noble Lord that NHS England has planned well ahead of this winter season, and I believe that we are making progress. But there may be cases where it could and should be done better.
Health: Economic Inactivity
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Watts
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The health and disability White Paper published in March sets out plans to transform the future system to support more disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work. We will reform the benefits system so that it focuses on what people can do. But, on the noble Baroness’s specific points, to my knowledge, GP practices are innovating and introducing such measures—but this needs to be expanded further.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have spent 13 years taking away money from the most deprived communities in Britain. Does the Minister accept the link between poor health and the money that has been reduced in those communities?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, it is great to see the noble Lord in his place. When I saw him sat there, I had déjà vu from his green Bench in the House of Commons—he is in exactly the same place to ask those Exocet questions. On his specific question, health can be linked to welfare payments, but it is also linked to unemployment because being in good-quality work benefits people’s health and well-being and that of all communities.