Urgent and Emergency Care

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As my hon. Friend knows, my parents live very near the hospital in question. I know he has been a huge champion of the additional funding. If the opportunity arises, I would be very happy to visit. I pay tribute to the work he has done to secure the additional facility, which will benefit his constituents and those across the Fylde coast.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

In July, I met the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the chief executive of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to discuss the ambulance delays and the delays at A&E. They both told me the same thing: the problem is actually with exit block. They cannot admit people if they cannot discharge people. I have been told by Hull Royal Infirmary that at points over the summer, more than 170 people were in the hospital who should not have been there because they were waiting for discharge packages. That works out at more than a fifth of hospital beds being taken up by people waiting for adult social care.

A number of months ago, I raised in this place a letter from the Conservative-led East Riding of Yorkshire Council, which said that it did not have the adult social care carers to meet the needs of the population. This situation will only get worse. The Secretary of State has said that he is looking at an international recruitment taskforce. I recommend a simpler solution: pay people more, and then we might get the workers we actually need to deliver adult social care. This is already a crisis and it will only get worse.