Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Walton of Detchant (Crossbench). It was answered on Thursday, 18 December 2008.

Health: Physicians

Question: My Lords, when I was appointed a consultant neurologist in 1958, there were 134 consultant neurologists in the UK, compared with 400 in Finland, with a population of 5 million. As the Minister has said—it is welcome—there has been in the last 10 years a major increase in all specialties of the consultant establishment. But, as reports from the royal colleges have demonstrated, would she accept that we are still far short of the ideal establishment of consultants in all medical specialties which would be required to give a full and satisfactory service to the UK community as a whole?

Answer: My Lords, the noble Lord has raised a very interesting point, because, as far as we can see, there is nowhere in the world where anybody says that there is an ideal number of doctors per head of the population. I specifically asked my officials to find that out for me. But we hope that, with the restructuring and decentralisation of NHS services, there will be an increased recruitment of professionally qualified staff, including GPs and consultants. We hope that the new system of recruitment and training will produce the outcomes we want.

Secondary information