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Emergency Care

If the hon. Gentleman does have a quick and easy answer, it is probably not appropriate for an intervention. He might want to stand up and make some comments later, but I feel that I should finish my speech so that other hon. Members can speak. The response to category A calls is good, but there is much more variation between the targets and the responses in the case of other urgent calls. The Healthcare Commission found that in some areas fewer than 80 per cent. of ambulances arrive within the target time. On arrival in hospital, there are significant variations in the proportion of patients seen by a doctor or nurse within the first hour after arrival. That figure varied from 40 per cent. to 100 per cent. Clearly, there is work to be done. There is also evidence of poor compliance with guidance on access to medication from out-of-hours GP services. Although that might not be seen as urgent care, if a patient is in pain or something like that, the care is certainly urgent to them. Concerns were also raised that suggested that many people were either unaware of the full range of urgent and emergency care services or were unsure about how and when to use them, which brings us back to the issue of the single contact number. Most importantly, the need to improve the way in which the services work together was highlighted. Data sharing is poor and PCT commissioning was highlighted as a concern. A survey produced last week showed that patients rate their care highly but raise concerns about pain control and information given on discharge. That takes us back to the mention of data sharing in the earlier reports. The people who are providing emergency care often do not have sufficient information about the patient. If somebody has been in accident and emergency, or has even been treated in out-of-hours care services, the relevant information is not always relayed back to the GP in as timely a fashion as it could be. Perhaps the Minister could tell us when decisions will be made about information sharing with regard to the NHS IT project. There is a lot of healthy debate about what level of information can be accessed by whom, but it could be crucial to outcomes in those particular cases. I want to end by making a comment that many hon. Members start their speeches with: I thank those who do their best to provide an emergency service, whether they are paid workers or volunteers such as community first responders or BASICS doctors. We owe it to all those people to ensure that attention is given to ensuring that people have the best possible outcome in the case of emergencies and that the PCTs ensure that funding streams are adequate. The problem with this area of medicine is that most people are grateful to have received urgent care, and they are often so pleased to be better and to have their problems sorted that they do not take the time to step back and ask whether their outcome could have been improved or whether their quality of life could have been different had a doctor been on the scene. Staff want to do better, but in many cases they are hampered by a lack of attention to best practice and, in some cases, sadly, by a lack of funding.