Lord Stirrup
Main Page: Lord Stirrup (Crossbench - Life peer)(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
Our ambition for cancer diagnosis is that by March 2024 75% of patients urgently referred by their GP for suspected cancer will receive a cancer diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within 28 days. In November 2023, 71.9% of patients received a diagnosis or all-clear within 28 days. We are confident that we will meet our March 2024 ambition.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that doctors who do not go on strike work frantically to cover for those who do. When the strike is over, they have to work frantically to try to eat into the backlogs, which have only grown during the strike. What action is being taken—apart from just wishing the strikes would go away—to manage clinical workloads in order to avoid plunging morale, burnout, premature retirements and all the compound consequences for waiting lists that flow from these?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble and gallant Lord makes a very good point. We are treating more patients than ever before due to the highest investment in the NHS, with community diagnostic centres, surgical hubs, more doctors and more nurses. Apart from the junior doctors, all parts of the NHS workforce—nurses, midwives, paramedics, consultant doctors and speciality doctors—have accepted the Government’s pay offers.
We urge the junior doctors to stop going on strike for their unreasonable pay demand. As the noble and gallant Lord rightly pointed out, it puts pressure on the whole workforce. The other parts of the workforce have accepted the pay offer. It is about everybody coming together, particularly junior doctors, at this difficult time. We are treating more people. The waiting lists came down in 2023. But, for as long as they go on unprecedented strikes, we will struggle to get to those targets.