Lord Sikka
Main Page: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Sikka's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
A lot of good work is being done. AI is often used to analyse brain scans very quickly in a lot of these centres that the noble Lord mentions. One of the very good things about trusts is that they have a lot of independence to develop their own initiatives, but sometimes the challenge—which I have really taken up—is getting that innovation adopted widely. I and the Secretary of State are great believers in that but, candidly, we need to work harder on it.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I invite the Minister to visit A&E departments and note the chronic lack of resources and capacity. I will give a personal example. I took my son to the local A&E as he had some life-threatening issues. We arrived at 12.13 pm on a Wednesday and a bed was found at 2.30 am the next morning; no spare bed could be found in any of the adjacent hospitals at all. When was the last time the Minister visited an A&E department and what did he notice?
Lord Markham (Con)
In the last few weeks, I have been in A&E departments most weeks. Over the Recess, I will be visiting another 15 or so hospitals—I cannot remember the exact number, but it is a big one. That will be to see the A&E and the new hospital programme that I am responsible for. I agree with the noble Lord that there is nothing like visiting a place to really understand the problems and get on top of them.