A and E Departments Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
David Tredinnick
Main Page: David Tredinnick (Conservative - Bosworth)Department Debates - View all David Tredinnick's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hunt
I have not seen any plans for the closure of St Helier. I know that NHS London is looking at possibilities to improve services in those areas, but, as the hon. Lady will know and should take comfort from, if a major reconfiguration is proposed and then referred to the Secretary of State by the local overview and scrutiny committee, I will not approve the change unless I am convinced that it will improve patient care.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we could make better use of the ambulance service and that if we had more fully trained ambulance men who could assess whether a patient needed to go to hospital, we could reduce A and E admissions that way?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the importance of the ambulance service, which is also feeling the pressure on A and E departments. We need to help the ambulance service to do its job better too. One thing that it always strikes me would make a huge difference to ambulance services is if staff could access the GP records of someone they were picking up on a 999 call, so that they would know that the patient was a diabetic with mild dementia and a heart condition, for instance. That kind of information can be incredibly helpful. I hope that by sorting out the IT issues with which the last Government struggled, we can help ambulance services to do that.