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Emergency Care

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Staff at Broomfield hospital, which serves his constituency, will greatly appreciate his comments. I know from talking to staff across the NHS that we sometimes underestimate the contribution that is drawn from all its professions and ancillary staff. We simply cannot run hospitals without a wide range of staff being present in order to make it happen, particularly out of hours and at weekends. Services can slow down dramatically without ancillary services such as diagnostics, portering and cleaning, and pathology laboratories being available. They are critical to maintaining the level of service that we all hope to receive when we go into hospital. Today, I want not only to express our thanks but to take the opportunity to make real our appreciation by understanding what the pressures experienced over recent weeks tell us about the capacity of the service, the impacts of Government policies and plans on emergency and urgent care services, and the need—which I express on behalf of NHS staff—for the implementation of long-overdue reforms to emergency care and its support structures. Let me give the House an important example in relation to understanding the pressures. In London, primary care trusts have been commissioning services from hospitals based on the framework for action that was published by Lord Darzi in July 2007. It is interesting to make a comparison, in order to understand what is going on. I heard from an NHS trust in London that its accident and emergency attendances in the 11 weeks before Christmas were up 10 per cent. on the preceding 11 weeks, that the elective admissions to the hospital were 15 per cent. above the level predicted by the primary care trust, and that its A and E attendances, year on year, had gone up by nearly 10 per cent., even though the primary care trust had said that they would go down. Lord Darzi's report said that, over the next 10 years, the number of attendances at A and E departments in London would go down by 60 per cent. He said that 10 per cent. of patients did not need to be seen at A and E, and that 50 per cent. would be seen in the Government's new polyclinics. Frankly, that is not happening. The number of attendances at A and E departments is going up. Up and down the country, people in A and E departments have told me that, when it comes down to it—as it often did over Christmas and the new year—patients are not being treated in the community when they are seriously ill, or when they are just reasonably ill, if the services in the community are unable to function 24/7 to offer the necessary support. The emergency department is the provider of last resort. It cannot say no; it has to meet the demand that is placed on it.