NHS Waiting Times: Long-Term Sickness Absence

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I am sorry, but I do not have a specific answer to that precise question, so I will write to the noble Lord in detail. He raises an important point: obviously, being on the waiting list for a long time is not good from the point of view of pain and a general deterioration in health.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, to take the noble Lord back to the question about GPs, clearly there is an extensive capacity issue with GP services across the country, but would the noble Lord not agree that there is also now a structural problem in the relationship between primary and secondary care? One of the impacts of this is that, partly for capacity and partly for structural reasons, GPs default to sending people to A&E, which builds up the pressure in hospitals. How are the Government looking at that relationship between primary and secondary care to see whether we can get back to something that looks a bit more like a joined-up system?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point. One of the issues is best practice: some GP practices engage through social media and other electronic internet-based systems where you can book appointments, but, sadly, some others are still unable to do that. For example, in some, the only way you can get an appointment is by phoning between 8 am and 10 am and, if they are booked up, you have to wait until the following day—but they do not tell you that that is the only time you can call. So GP practices can clearly do more to interface with their patients. There are some outstanding examples, but, unfortunately, there is still a lot more to do on that.