Accident and Emergency Services: Staffing

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of shifts in hospital accident and emergency services not fully manned in each of the last three years.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so I refer to the register of my interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the responsibility of NHS trusts to ensure that they have the right number of staff with the right skills in the right place to deliver high-quality, safe and efficient care. There are already almost 32,000 more clinical staff working in the NHS than in May 2010, including almost 6,000 more nurses and 1,280 more doctors within the specialty of emergency medicine.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I thank the doctors who have been looking after my broken wrist. Does my noble friend agree that the problem is not that junior doctors are not working at weekends, but that there are simply not enough junior doctors on the books at this time, and that no other specialists such as therapists, radiologists and so forth are working over the weekend? What will the true cost of seven-day-a-week hospital opening be to the National Health Service going forward?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, seven-day working clearly goes far beyond junior doctors; it requires senior doctors, pharmacists, social workers, and primary care as well as acute care if we are to deliver a full seven-day service. As my noble friend knows, that is our objective over the next five years.