Junior Doctors: Industrial Action

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I might ask two very brief questions. First, I recognise the undertaking that the Conservative Party gave in its manifesto, but were the BMA—or the junior doctors, more widely—consulted prior to the general election on their views on seven-day working? That is quite a simple question. If they were, what was their response in that consultation? Secondly, following the Written Questions that I tabled recently on information that the Government might hold on the position of junior doctors, why do the Government not keep statistics on doctors’ resignations from the National Health Service and on the emigration of doctors who cede their posts in the United Kingdom to take up posts overseas? Why are those vital statistics not available, particularly when we are going into this very difficult period?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, first, the need for a seven-day service has been recognised by the medical profession for a number of years. I remember reading the Future Hospital report four or five years ago in which the Royal College of Physicians talked about a seven-day service. Of course, it was the academy of the royal colleges that produced the 10 clinical standards that underpin a seven-day service. The issue is not whether or not there should be a seven-day service; the more serious issue that has been raised is whether we have the resources to deliver a seven-day service. We argue that we are putting enough resources into the NHS to do that. So I think that the principle of a seven-day service, certainly for urgent and emergency care, if not for elective care, is well accepted by the medical profession.

Interestingly, on the point about the number of people leaving—the resignations that the noble Lord referred to—I was pretty horrified to hear about the son of someone on the noble Lord’s Benches who had left the NHS to go to work in America two years ago, I think. He described a pretty torrid time working in the NHS as a junior doctor. To cap it all, when he went, there was no exit interview. No one was really concerned or knew that he had gone. That is just another illustration of the fact that we have not sufficiently respected or valued junior doctors in the NHS.