Accident and Emergency Departments

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord makes a good point. If qualified people take the call, the level of risk they are prepared to absorb will be greater, and that applies throughout the whole system.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest in the register. As we have heard from the Minister, the Government seem to accept the case that accident prevention programmes can have a significant beneficial impact on A&E attendances, but the Minister says that it is all down to local authorities. Given the huge cuts in local authority spending, with more announced just last week, what is the Minister’s assessment of the opportunities of local authorities to gain this benefit?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The report done by Queen Mary’s, which was based in Oxford, indicated that the under-fives attending A&E departments accounted for 7% of all attendances, which gives an idea of the scale of what we might try to achieve. The reduction, in real terms, in local authority spending over the next five years is 3.9% per annum. Our feeling is that local authorities are well equipped to live with that kind of reduction.