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Emergency Care

I welcome this debate. When I first read the Conservative motion, I thought it was a bit of a hotch-potch: half of it nobody could disagree with—it praises everyone under the sun, and there is nothing wrong in that—but the rest of it seemed like the product of a brainstorm, with references to almost anything that might be remotely related to emergency and urgent care. However, although some of those topics have not been pursued in the debate so far, the Conservatives have highlighted a very important subject. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) took the Secretary of State to task for amending the motion to mention out-of-hours care, but I think the changes in the provision of that care have had an impact on emergency and urgent care, so it is probably worth mentioning some of them. The Government have done many things to improve care for patients, but they would probably acknowledge quietly that one of their biggest mistakes was to take responsibility for out-of-hours care away from GPs and put it in the hands of the primary care trusts. As a result, the GPs were only responsible for the core hours from Monday to Friday. In some areas, GPs wanted to provide weekend care, particularly if they had a high commuter base, but that was actively discouraged by PCTs. The costs shot through the roof, and in some places the out-of-hours services were introduced hurriedly—to describe what was on offer in many areas of the country as an ““unmitigated disaster”” is putting it quite mildly. Many people waited more than four hours for a GP to arrive. In my area, we are flying in doctors from various parts of the European Union. A lot of them are German. I have no problem with German doctors; they are all very nice, and people generally had a positive experience. However, those doctors did not understand local services and a number of significant problems arose; if they wanted to section somebody, for example, they did not understand the UK law and procedures governing that decision. The number of people resorting to calling an ambulance also markedly increased. It is perfectly understandable that a concerned patient might do that if the out-of-hours service is not responding and they are not getting the reassurance they need. We should not criticise patients for doing that. The Government amendment applauds the increase in GP opening hours. I concede that that may have enhanced choice, but I do not think it has improved access to urgent care because many people are making routine appointments for those extra hours. It is important to consider what urgent care actually is, and it is worth posing a couple of fundamental questions. How does the patient know whether their symptoms are the sign of something serious—whether they can wait to have them checked out, or if they should be making a fuss about being seen? It is clear that different patients respond in different ways. Most GPs will have their regular complainers, but in the days when GPs knew their patients—I hate to say ““the good old days””, because I am not sure they were good in all respects—the GP was often able to make a value judgment. They could say, ““I saw Mrs. X only last week. I know her quite well, and I think reassurance will go a long way in this case.”” In the hands of a doctor who does not understand Mrs. X, however, more resources might be used because they do not know the background and personality of the patient and they will therefore treat them on a more precautionary basis. I suspect that most Members present will have been out with an on-duty ambulance crew. From witnessing them calling on people, it is obvious that there is a wide range of differing attitudes as to the circumstances in which it is appropriate to call the ambulance service out. One of my first pieces of casework when elected as an MP related to an ambulance that did not arrive to a call from a rural setting, and I was horrified to find out that ambulance crews were often having to deal with very trivial cases. Although the ambulance service does a wonderful job, it does not need to do much of what it does. Every time somebody with a trivial complaint calls out an ambulance, they are potentially endangering the life of somebody else. That risk is not communicated often enough. The first point of call for people who are ill is usually the surgery. Even if it is closed, they often think of calling their GP, and, in many cases, the call is diverted to the appropriate out-of-hours service. That is what one would expect, but the recent Healthcare Commission report showed that in a significant number of cases—I cannot recall the statistic off the top of my head—the relevant information was not communicated. That resulted in the patient either having to dial somewhere else or thinking that they did not want to speak to a doctor who they did not know and wondering whether they had any other options. Some people will look at various websites for advice, whereas others will go to their nearest pharmacy. Accessing NHS Direct, either on the web or by phone, is a popular choice. Other people will choose to use a walk-in centre or out-of-hours care, or they may call an ambulance because they do not know what to do and are worried. I welcome the move towards having a single contact number, but I make a plea that during the consultation we examine what has happened when the police and other bodies have introduced such a number. Often, what has happened is that all the other numbers have gradually been withdrawn and people have not then been able to choose to ring the department that they want directly; they have always then had to go through a central switchboard, and often they have not been able to ring their local provider and speak to the person whom they know. To be fair to the police, locally they have got much more sophisticated about this and have found other ways of getting around the system. People who know who they wish to ring find it frustrating to have to go through a bureaucratic telephone triage service—to go somewhere else. By all means, let us have a single point of contact, but if someone knows who they want to contact, it should be easy for them to do so—there should be no barrier. So, there are pluses and minuses to the proposal. I wish to discuss the strain on ambulance services. As a result of inappropriate calls, the London ambulance service, among others, introduced a clinical telephone advice team to advise callers who had less serious conditions—the team made a point of ringing such people back. During 2007-08, the London team handled more than 58,000 calls, and analysis showed that, over the year, that freed-up the equivalent of 35,383 ambulances for patients who needed them more. Not every ambulance trust has that sort of system in place, despite facing similar pressures, so it may be worth considering whether that is best practice. Although different areas rightly provide different solutions, it is also worth examining things that work well elsewhere. This might be an appropriate time briefly to mention ambulance response times. The most commonly known target is to reach 75 per cent. of category A life-threatening situations within eight minutes of the call. I have never been able to establish why eight minutes was decided as the crucial figure or why 75 per cent. is acceptable—perhaps the Secretary of State could enlighten me—but there are added pressures this year. In previous years, some ambulance trusts have been accused, rightly or wrongly, of manipulating the time when the clock started in order to improve their results. Now, so that there is no dispute, the clock starts ticking as soon as the call connects and, thus, there is a level playing field.