Emergency Hospital Admissions

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord makes an important point. It was good to study the report and the noble Lord is right about avoidable hospital admissions. Two changes are happening. One is GP extended access, which now has 95% coverage across the country—that is, evenings, weekends and so on—as primary care. We also have interesting results coming from the new models of care programme. I highlight one that is happening in mid-Nottinghamshire. It is called PRISM and it is a virtual ward for at-risk patients which enables multidisciplinary teams to look at vulnerable people before they come to hospital. It has reduced A&E attendance for those aged over 80 by 17%, which is significant. It is precisely this kind of thing that will make the difference that we need.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that in 2016-17, 30% of admissions to A&E of people aged 65 and over were alcohol-related? Is he further aware that, given the need for the services of psychiatrists to look after those people, training for psychiatrists has reduced dramatically in the past 10 years and we have no facilities available to look after them? Turning to a longer-term public health policy, when will the Government do something about the increasing number of people going into hospital due to alcohol problems?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

It is now the case that thousands of GPs and hospital staff have been trained to screen for the signs of alcohol abuse and to provide intervention. So not only are there dedicated staff and dedicated public health programmes, but hospital and primary care staff have now been specifically trained to look for the signs and to signpost people to care when they need it.