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Emergency Care

Ah! Well, that is very interesting. As well as improving pay for staff on the lowest pay grades, ““Agenda for Change””, which was introduced in October 2004, has significantly improved the pay and conditions for ambulance staff in particular. They are no longer expected to work nights, weekends and public holidays for the same rates of pay as normal hours. Their pay has increased, as has the training and the professional development that they receive. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire is right that winter pressures place additional strain on urgent and emergency care. As hon. Members will know, last month was the coldest December for 30 years. Increases in accidents, flu cases and other health problems associated with cold weather put the NHS under great pressure. In some hospitals that I visited, it was miraculous that the staff were keeping the service going at such high level of quality. At one hospital that I visited in Yorkshire, the amount of ice on the roads meant that it had to treat 200 fractures over four days. However, better planning, more staff and improved organisation have given the NHS the capacity to cope with such pressure without a return to the dreadful scenes of the early 1990s, when many A and E departments had to close because they could not cope with patient demand. I agree that we should support further improvements of acute hospitals and develop more specialist centres. I would also like to point out that the abolition of long waits and greater investment in specialist centres for conditions such as stroke over the past 12 years has radically transformed patient care in our hospitals. I, too, welcome the report by the College of Emergency Medicine, but I take issue with the claim that the vital reconfigurations of urgent and emergency care services are motivated by financial constraints or that they are clinically unproven. Every reconfiguration of urgent and emergency care is clinically reviewed by the national clinical director for urgent and emergency care and his team. All decisions are taken on the basis that they will improve patient safety and improve the quality of care and that they balance these concerns against improving patient access.